2022 Life Logs, Day 168: A Little Overwhelmed
Date: Friday, June 17, 2022
Weather: Cloudy with Light Rain; High 72, Low 62 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I must admit that I feel overwhelmed with what is happening in our country. I have been trying to watch as much of the January 6th Committee Hearings as possible. I have been recording them and watching a bit at a time. Listening to a conservative and well-respected Federal Judge say that Donald Trump and his allies are a “clear and present danger to our society” was chilling. Then today was the beginning of the first ever Juneteenth weekend. Tonight, I joined friends and my daughter in Woods Hole to a Juneteenth weekend kick-off presentation by Dr. Chad Starks. The title of the talk was “Be the Messenger: Tell the Truth about Independence in America and its Impact on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” All you have to do is read those words slowly and let them sink in to feel the heaviness of that presentation. All things we all needed to hear, but hard to figure out what each of us can do individually to move toward an America that lives up to those words. Lots to think about.

On a lighter note, tonight was the beginning of Arts Alive, Falmouth’s festive three-day celebration of the arts that takes place in downtown Falmouth. Ollie plays with Sonnay Fiddler’s tomorrow morning, so I will head downtown early to that and then check out the other activities. Jonah and Sam are off early in the morning on a 3-day Scout biking expedition. And on Sunday Heather and Jed leave for Maine. On Monday they will be there for the survey and sea trial of Eider, the 36-foot Cape Dory sailboat they are buying. Ollie and I will hold down the fort here, pick up Sam and Jonah on Monday morning at the end of their biking adventure, and then all come home and welcome my dining-in group at their house on Monday afternoon. Heather and Jed will either be home very, very late on Monday night or on Tuesday morning. It is going to be a jam-packed three-day weekend.

2022 Life Logs, Day 167: Gardening at Olga’s
Date: Thursday, June 16, 2022
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 71, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Finally, today I had a little more energy and managed to get some gardening done. This summer I have my gardens, plus my friend Olga let me plant tomatoes in her raised beds that are in full sun. We also jointly planted some cucumber and squash plants. We did this right before I left for Virginia, and we didn’t have the time to get her drip irrigation system going. Upon return from Virginia, I heard from Olga that she had not been able to get it going, so that was my task today. I planted more garlic for Olga and planted the last of my tomato plants and then got the irrigation system going. But I need to make some changes. In an area where she has garlic planted, the irrigation heads need to be replaced with ones that can be regulated. And where the tomatoes are, more water is needed. But at least everything will get watered everyday until I can make the changes.

Tomorrow morning, I drive back to Providence, RI to pick Heather up and then return to have lunch with friend Karen Baranowski. Hopefully I will get to gardening in my raised beds on Saturday. And hopefully this burst of energy is here to stay.

2022 Life Logs, Day 166: Oh, That Strawberry Full Moon
Date: Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Weather: Sunny with Puffy White Clouds; High 72, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Last night after I wrote and sent my log out, I went outside with Shadow for his last pee break of the day. As I walked out the door, I stopped dead in my tracks. That Strawberry Full Moon looked huge hanging in the sky in front of me. Beautiful!

Today was a driving day. Shadow and I left home at 9:50 am to go pick up Heather and take her to the train station in Providence about an hour and 15 minutes from here. Our plan was to leave at 10:20 am, getting us to the train station about 15 minutes prior to Heather’s train to NYC. Before I got to her house, she texted that Sullivan Tire had contacted Jed and said her car was ready. Once I picked her up, we thought there was time for me to take her Sullivan so she could drive herself to Providence. But there was so much traffic in town, we decided against it. We had not built in the time for her to park and get to the gate. I think I am still in shock from getting to the airport too late to check my baggage for my trip to Virginia, so I insisted on driving her.

After dropping Heather at the train station, I headed to a West Marine in Seekonk, a little town just off the highway on the way home. I wanted to see a dinghy they had on display and there is not one at our Falmouth West Marine. I was glad I stopped because it is not a dinghy I would recommend anyone buying. I no sooner got back in the car and headed back toward the highway when I got a call from Jed. He desperately needed dry ice for an experiment he was running and the closest place to Cape Cod to get the dry ice happens to be on the way home from Providence, just north of Fall River. The dry ice was supposed to be delivered to WHOI yesterday, but there was a shipping problem. Stopping to pick it up was a little out of the way for me, but I was glad to do it. By the time I picked up the dry ice, took Shadow for a little walk, and drove back to the Cape and on down to Woods Hole, it was 2 pm. Jed was behind on his experiment schedule since he was waiting for the dry ice, so I offered to hang out in Falmouth and pick Ollie up from school at 3:30 pm. And then I offered to wait until Jed got home from work and take him to Sullivan Tire to pick up the car. By the time I got home it was 5 pm and I was exhausted. I am not sure why I am so tired. Tomorrow I’m just going to sit at my computer all day and search for a dinghy for Heather and Jed. If sitting still all day makes me tired, I’m going to get worried that something is really wrong. Hopefully a quiet day will solve the problem.

2022 Life Logs, Day 165: Moving a Little Faster
Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Weather: Sunny; High 76, Low 59 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Slowly, slowly, I am coming back to a normal pace of life. Today I was moving a little faster than yesterday and I actually got a lot of gardening done. I went to my monthly book club meeting this morning and after listening to one member talk about her garden, I decided to head home and get to work. I spent way too much time trying to fix a leak in my drip irrigation system. The leak was at the faucet end and what I eventually discovered was that a hose washer was missing from one of the main parts. Once I put in a new washer, things were good, but I had spent almost an hour getting to that point and in the process had to go to the hardware store to get a new pipe wrench to tighten things. I know I once had one, but it was nowhere to be found today. I also spent time online looking for a dinghy for Heather and Jed. Tomorrow I will take Heather to Providence so she can catch the train to New York City for a meeting and I will get a chance to talk with her about dinghies.

When I was in Virginia, I got word that my niece Jennifer who lives in the Charlotte area was having emergency brain surgery. Jennifer is one of my sister Patsy’s two children. Patsy and I are the last of our generation. She is almost 89 and is living near Jennifer in an assisted living facility. She moved there from Nashville last June, but she has never really settled in. Jennifer has been with her almost every day to keep her company, and otherwise she really doesn’t go out of her room. But Jennifer has cancer and last week a brain tumor had to suddenly be removed. Jennifer is doing great, but it will be sometime before she will be able to visit with Patsy again. So I have been spending a lot of time on the phone trying to encourage my sister to at least go to the dining room for lunch and dinner. She has been having food delivered to her room, but that means that she does not get out to meet people. Today was a success. She went to lunch and dinner in the dining room. I am so grateful for small victories.

2022 Life Logs, Day 164: Slow Re-entry
Date: Monday, June 13, 2022
Weather: Thunderstorms Early, Mostly Sunny Day; High 76, Low 59 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Slowly, every so slowly, I am getting back into my normal day to day life after my wonderful week in Virginia. Today I finished cleaning the refrigerator, took Shadow to the vet for a shot, watched some of the congressional hearing, planned a Newcomers field trip, went to Sullivan Tire to get help taking my old, rusty bike rack off the back of my car, went to the library to get a new book to read, and took Jonah and Sam to music lessons. I didn’t get any gardening done. Maybe that will happen tomorrow after my book club meeting.

2022 Life Logs, Day 163: Lost Day
Date: Sunday, June 12, 2022
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Some Rain; High 72, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

After returning from my week in Virginia, I was full of energy yesterday. But today I crashed. I felt exhausted and had absolutely no desire to do anything. I pushed myself to do some yard work and plant a few things in the garden, but that was it outside. Inside, I cleaned the bottom half of my refrigerator and hope to complete the job tomorrow. The refrigerator is almost empty, so before filling it up again I decided to start the cleaning process. I also had to deal with a hacked Facebook page. That seems to happen every time I travel. Sure hope I wake up a little more energetic tomorrow!

2022 Life Logs, Day 160: Monticello, UVA, Evening at Roberts Mountain Retreat
Date: Thursday, June 9, 2022
Weather: Sunny, Beautiful Day; High 83, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Gate House at the Monroe Institute, Faber, VA

Ziggy, Coco, and I spent our morning and early afternoon at Monticello in Charlottesville. We started with a Highlights Tour of the house and gardens, and we all found things we loved. Coco loved the flowers in the garden, Ziggy was amazed by the number of tadpoles in a small pool in the gardens, and I loved it all. The house tour was short enough for the kids to enjoy it and be awed by many of Jefferson’s inventions. We entered through the East Portico into a room filled with artifacts. The only remaining artifacts from Lewis and Clark’s expedition are in that room. From there we entered the library. At one point Jefferson had 6,000 books, the largest personal collection in the United States at that time. But during the War of 1812, many of those books were donated to the Library of Congress. Later Jefferson started adding books again. He always said, “I can’t live without books.” The next room was his most private room, his bedroom. His wife died before the main house as we know it today was completed, so she never shared that bedroom with him. He liked alcove beds, but Monticello didn’t have a wall suitable for that. Instead, he converted a doorway into what I would call a “cubby hole: bed. The head of the bed is against one side of the doorway and the foot against the other. These are the types of beds at the Roberts Mountain Retreat which was a point of interest for Ziggy and Coco. From the bedroom, you enter the parlor or living room and the dining room. The dining room was painted a bright yellow, the most expensive paint at the time, to give a bright feeling to the room no matter the weather. There are too many details and inventions of Jefferson’s to mention, but they were impressive. The flower gardens on the expansive front lawn were beautiful and Coco took close up photos of most so she can draw them later. Along the outside ground floor on the south side of the house is where the impressive kitchen, the most modern in its time, is located, along with the dairy, the smokehouse, and the rooms where some of the enslaved house servants lived in very cramped quarters. We wondered Mulberry Lane to where the slave quarters were located, the stables where the carriage horses were kept, and the beautiful vegetable gardens. Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man, a man of many talents and achievements, but hanging over this is the dark side of Jefferson. He wrote the famous words “all Men are created equal” and in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, in soaring, damning, fiery prose, Jefferson denounced the slave trade as an “execrable commerce…this assemblage of horrors,” a “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberties.” But he inherited land and slaves from the generations before him and kept slaves throughout his life. And as the Virginia abolitionist Moncure Conway scornfully remarked, despite Jefferson’s enduring reputation as a would-be emancipator, “Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do.” At the end of our visit, we had a twenty-five minute question and answer time with an acting Thomas Jefferson. He was in period dress and was so convincing that I felt like I was listening to the real Thomas Jefferson. He answered questions addressing his anti-slavery rhetoric and his lack of action. Listening to his point of view was informative.

We drove from Monticello to the University of Virginia to have our picnic lunch under a huge, old ginkgo tree, my very favorite tree, right next to the Rotunda designed by Jefferson. And then we headed back to Roberts Mountain to spend some afternoon free time with Justin and Jo. Then Ziggy, Coco, and I headed back down the mountain to the Gate House to pack and do a little clean up before going back to the Retreat Center for dinner and a final gathering around a fire where the Retreat participants shared their music.
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Tomorrow morning Jo, Ziggy, Coco, and I head to Richmond for our flights home. We will leave Justin behind as he has two more weeks of work here. It has been a wonderful seven days here for me—quality time with Ziggy and Coco that I have never had before. We have all found Roberts Mountain to be a very special place in this world. Hopefully we will get to return for a repeat performance.

2022 Life Logs, Day 159: Enjoying Roberts Mountain
Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny with Periods of Rain; High 85, Low 66 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Gate House at the Monroe Institute, Faber, VA

Today was our day to enjoy our home base here on Roberts Mountain. Ziggy, Coco, and I started our day with a nature walk. On our first day here, Justin discovered a patch of black raspberries growing across the road from the Gate House property, but the berries were not quite ripe. When we walked by them today, Coco immediately saw that many had ripened, so we picked what we could without climbing through the poison ivy surrounding the bushes. Each kid got only a handful and I only a taste. Oh, so good! We also looked carefully at the leaves from some of the trees. There are about four trees that all have similar leaves, leaves arranged in rows on either side of the central stem.

They could be black walnut, hickory, ash, butternut, or ???. The kids weren’t really interested in deciding which, but they did start seeing the details and noticing that they have trees in Puerto Rico with the same growing pattern.

In the afternoon, we met Justin, Jo, and Caz, a young woman attending the conference from England, at the lake. We all jumped in, and all but Coco and I swam most of the way across the lake.

It had rained earlier but was sunny when we got into the water. But before the crew swam back to the dock, Coco and I started hearing thunder. Just as they got out of the water, the sky opened and it poured. By the time we walked back out to the van, the rain had slowed considerably. We decided we could dry ourselves off enough to put dry clothes over our wet bathing suits and go to the main campus to the bookstore. We did that and then we walked to the top of the observation tower attached to one of the buildings and walked down to the once again hug the huge crystal sitting in the expansive lawn behind the main campus buildings. Then we hurried back to the Retreat Center so Justin, Jo, and Caz could attend the 4 pm session. Ziggy, Coco, and I went home, took nice hot showers, and wrote in our travel journals before heading back to the Retreat Center for dinner and more time with mommy and daddy. Justin will not be leaving on Friday with the rest of us. He is here for two more weeks and the kids, particularly Ziggy, wants to spend as much time with him as possible.

While at the Retreat Center tonight, I took advantage of having cell service to make some phone calls. My niece, Jennifer, in North Carolina, had emergency brain surgery yesterday morning and I needed to talk to my sister. Jennifer came through the surgery just fine and seems to be doing well. I was supposed to go visit my sister on Friday, but due to my flight screw up on the way here, I have to fly home on Friday. I will wait to see how Jennifer is doing before planning my next trip down to see my sister. My thoughts are with her and with Jennifer.