2019 Life Logs, Day 145: Ollie Sleepover
Date: Saturday, May 25, 2019
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 72, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Ollie is spending the night with me tonight. I always love having him here for a sleepover, but there is usually one or both brothers with him. So, I think he was feeling a little lonesome tonight and decided he wanted to sleep with me in my bed. Jed is in Maine with Jonah and Heather is probably just now driving home from Boston with Sam and two of his friends. They went to a Revs game tonight. The Revelations are Boston’s professional soccer team. For Christmas, each boy got tickets to a Revs game with one parent and a friend or two, and tonight was Sam’s night. Heather worked outside all day today, as did I, and if she feels anything like I do, the drive home from Boston at this late hour will be challenging. It was great to be able to be outside today, but I am worn out. I arrived at Heather’s at 8 am so she could go for a run. The June Jog is in two weeks and the miserable weather we have been experiencing has not been great training weather. So, she took advantage of the sunshine this morning. We then divided up the chores for the day and got to work. Sam had a Scout meeting this morning, Ollie worked on cutting the grass in the morning and then washed the van in the afternoon, Heather cut the boards for making another deep bed and worked on other gardening projects, and I swept the van to get it ready for the trip to Boston this evening, got the boys’ room ready for Sam’s friends to spend the night, worked on laundry, went to the nursery to buy some plants, and went to my house to get some of the plants I have been growing for Heather’s garden. Heather transplanted strawberries from the main garden to a raised bed in the front yard and I finished planting the raised bed just off their deck and planted one large container with Aurora peppers that I started from seed. I brought Ollie’s little tractor to my house at the end of the day, and he made a few trips bringing bricks from Shirley’s concrete patio over here to use as garden edging. He will finish that job in the morning as this day just wasn’t long enough. That’s why there is a tomorrow.

2019 Life Logs, Day 144: Organic Puppy Food
Date: Friday, May 24, 2019
Weather: Sunny Early, Then Cloudy and Windy; High 69, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

No, I don’t have a puppy yet. But I am getting closer, so today I sat at the computer researching training methods and different types of puppy food. While doing this, I got a call from Jonah asking if he and his had could stop by in about five minutes to pick-up his marsh mucking boots to take with him to Maine for the weekend. So, I got up from the computer to get the boots and some snacks ready for Jonah. When they stopped by, Jonah must have walked by the computer because as he left he said, “I see you are looking at organic puppy food. Oma, are you getting a puppy? And are you really going to feed the puppy organic food?” I explained that I am getting closer to making a decision on a puppy, and that yes, if and when I get one, I will feed it organic puppy food. He looked at me with a puzzled expression and then he and Jed were off for Boothbay. They will spend the long weekend opening Jed’s mother’s Maine home for the summer and doing some outdoor projects for her. After they drove off, I kept thinking about Jonah’s question about feeding a puppy organic food. Then I left to go to the gym to ride the stationary bike. While riding, I started a new book, Michele Obama’s BECOMING. In the Preface she writes, “There’s a lot I still don’t know about America, about life, about what the future might bring. But I do know myself. My father, Fraser, taught me to work hard, laugh often, and keep my word. My mother, Marian, showed me how to think for myself and to use my voice. Together, in our cramped apartment on the South Side of Chicago, they helped me see the value in our story, in my story, in the larger story of our country. Even when it’s not pretty or perfect. Even when it is more real than you want it to be. Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.” What a profound statement. I think many people don’t realize they have their own story. But I know I do and this afternoon between Jonah’s comment about organic puppy food and Michelle’s comment that everyone has a story, I realized that a great deal of my story deals with food. I had never thought of ‘my story’ in that way before. When I think of my story, I think about growing up poor in West Virginia. I think about going to and graduating from college with no monetary help from my parents. I think about my adventures with Mark—building a cabin in the mountains of Idaho, building a home and farm in Minnesota, building a bigger home and a bigger farm in southern West Virginia. I think about sailing around the world. And I think about our children and how all of our life decisions were made based on what we thought best for them. What I hadn’t thought of before this afternoon was that those beginning adventures with Mark were driven by an intense desire to live self-sufficiently, growing our own organic food. Even the first adventure, building the cabin in Idaho before we had children, revolved around food. I insisted that before we build the cabin that we clear enough ground for a garden and get that fenced and planted before cutting the first tree for the cabin. That took us six weeks, but we did it! So, Jonah’s comment about feeding a puppy organic puppy food sure brought forth a lot of my story that I hadn’t thought of before. My search for finding a way to eat healthy food started in 1974 and is continuing today. I believe that the most important decision we make three times a day, every day, is what we decide to eat in order to fuel our bodies. I believe, based on lots of evidence, that eating genetically modified foods and foods grown with chemical fertilizers and sprayed with poisons, is certainly not a healthy choice. So whenever possible, I eat only organic and verified non-GMO (genetically modified) food. And I certainly wouldn’t even feed a dog anything different. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

2019 Life Logs, Day 143: Quiet, Cool Day
Date: Thursday, May 23, 2019
Weather: Overcast; High 63, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I’m sitting here in a lightweight sweater plus a sweater vest and I still feel chilly. The high temperature was 63 degrees today, certainly not considered ‘cool’– but with no sun, it sure felt cool to me. I looked up the temperature scale for spring and basically temps in the 50’s are considered cool and temps from 59 to 75 degree F are considered warm. Since it was 63 degrees F today, I just need to get a grip!

It was also a quiet day. I went to the gym for my first class since my knee surgery, and that went well. I stopped by Heather’s to do a little gardening and then I headed home for a day of quiet. I did some gardening and drew out a plan for installing a drip irrigation system. Then I spent all afternoon researching drip irrigation systems. I’m learning about all the components needed and found that one brand of tubing looks the same another brand, but their characteristics in terms of flexibility and durability are very different. The research into the right drip irrigation system took a lot of time and I am still not sure what to buy. I’ll continue that search tomorrow. When I needed a break from irrigation, I got back to my online search for a puppy. I have one possibility and will follow up on that tomorrow as well. I finished my day by cooking a chicken and bok choy stir fry dinner and then catching up on what’s happening in Washington and around the world. Not a lot of happy news there.

2019 Life Logs, Day 142: ‘Secret Ingredients’ and EFES Art Show
Date: Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 68, Low 48 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Laura Winslow who became a health coach after successfully battling breast cancer. While dealing with her health issues, Laura came to the conclusion that she needed to make radical changes in her life. She started eating organic, non-GMO certified food and changed her cleaning products and personal care products to be as natural as possible. Due to my knee surgery, I missed Laura’s talk on GMO’s. But while Justin was here right after my surgery, I mentioned I was missing that meeting and that led to us watching ‘Secret Ingredients’ together. I was unaware that, Jeffrey Smith, a non-GMO acitivist for the past 21 years and executive producer of the film, is one of Justin’s clients. I told Justin about my health group, and he contacted Laura to see if she would like to show the film to the group.
The ‘Secret Ingredients’ in our food are the chemicals applied to our food as it is grown and the chemicals that are embedded in some of the genetically modified seeds. A person in the film hit the nail on the head when he asked why it is that a chemical company is in charge of our food production. Good question. For years Monsanto has declared that their most popular herbicide, Roundup, does not affect human health. Well, guess what. It does. And research that has been hidden and/or misrepresented for years shows that. Over the past couple of years, I have made the change to buying only organic whenever possible. If food is labeled as USDA organic, then it is non-GMO. Even better than organic is organic AND non-GMO certified. This film is just the most recent of Jeffry Smith attempts to bring forth this important information. I applaud him and his dedication to this issue.

After the morning at the library, I went to the gym to do my 30 minutes on the stationary bike and headed home for a late lunch. I then did prep for dinner for the Goldpebbles. Heather was in Boston today and Jed is still down south. Sam had jazz band after school, but thankfully another parent brought him home. Cassidy, the high school student from across the street picked Ollie up from school, and once I had dinner pre-cooked, I picked Jonah up from an after-school program. We all sat down to eat at 5 pm as Sam had soccer practice at 5:30 and Jonah and Ollie had their annual art show at the elementary school. Unfortunately for Sam, the parent that was picking him up for soccer arrived very early, just as we sat down to eat, so I sent him with an energy bar and promised dinner after soccer practice. I then took Jonah and Ollie to the elementary school where they enjoyed the ice cream social and shopped at the Book Fair. Heather arrived just in time for the art tour and I took off to pick up Sam. I took him home to eat and then returned to the elementary school to get my tour of the art work. Heather posted a Facebook thank you tonight to myself and the other parents who helped out saying that it takes a village. I am so glad that I am part of that village!

2019 Life Logs, Day 141: Amazing Women Sailing ATW Solo Nonstop . . . Again
Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Still Windy; High 72, Low 48 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Larry Beavers was the engineer for New Hampshire Public Radio during Mark’s years there as General Manager. He and his wife Angela had a daughter the same age as Heather, so we knew them well. I haven’t seen them for a few years, but today I got a message from Larry alerting me to a website he thought I might be interested in. There is a woman named Jeanne Socrates once again attempting to sail around the world nonstop and unassisted. The amazing thing is that she is 76 years old! In the late 1990’s, she and her husband began their sailing adventures. Unfortunately, her husband discovered he had cancer. He sailed for another year or two, but then the cancer won out. But Jeanne continued on all by her herself. Their boat was named Nereida, and even after losing the boat off the coast of Mexico, Jeanne continued in a new boat with the same name. That was in the early 2000’s. Right not she is off the coast of New Zealand. If you would like to learn more about the Jeanne Socrates adventure, you can go to her website at https://svnereida.com/articles-interviews. From there, you can get to her blogs and to her history. She is already the oldest women to sail around the world solo nonstop unassisted. She is now striving to be the oldest person, man or woman, to sail around the world alone unassisted. What a woman!

After reading about Jeanne, my day seemed very mundane. Exercise at home, a trip to the gym, home for lunch, off to the Goldstones to be at home when Jonah and Ollie got home from school. They are now leaving the school as walkers on Tuesdays. They are accompanied by a school volunteer to get across the main highway and then they walk home on their own. It is not far, but it gives them a sense of independence. In between all of this, I did a little gardening. It is still too cool to do much, but I am working on hardening off the seedlings started inside. This next weekend is Memorial Day weekend, the traditional planting time here on the Cape. But the weather has been so cool that we might need to wait another week or so.

2019 Life Logs, Day 140: Sam’s 6th Grade Band Concert
Date: Monday, May 20, 2019
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds, Windy; High 68, Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I can’t believe my first-born grandchild is in sixth grade and will be in middle school next fall. But attending his 6th grade band concert tonight gave evidence that this is true.

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Sam plays percussion and was on cymbals for the first song and then on tone block and drums for the other songs. He is also a drummer for the jazz band that played next and he was the drummer for the first song, My Girl. I heard this song at the district-wide concert a couple of months ago, but hearing Sam drum for one of favorite songs ever is very special. One of Sam’s very best friends, Robert, is the other jazz band drummer, and he drummed for the second song. Then both of them sat back and air-drummed for the last song which was an improvisation for horns. A high school senior led the improv and then the students went with it. They were amazing. Sam’s good friend Sebastian is truly a gifted saxophone player. Wonderful to see such talent. Afterwards we went to Smitty’s to celebrate with Robert and his parents and brother. As we enter the last month of school, I think there is concert every week going forward. Jonah has a band concert next week, Ollie the next week, and then there is Jonah’s 4th grade graduation with 4th grade chorus concert. So you’ll be reading about more concerts as we move toward the end of the school year.

2019 Life Logs, Day 139: Soccer Sunday Morning
Date: Sunday, May 19, 2019
Weather: Sun Early, then Clouds and a Little Rain; High 64, Low 58 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Jonah had an 11 am soccer game today, but he had to be at the field an hour early for practice and a team photo. Sam spent the night with his friend Sebastian last night and Ollie and Jonah stayed up much later than usual as they, along with their babysitter, were invited next door to the Keefe’s for a sit around the ‘camp’ fire last night. They slept in and then Heather had to take off with Jonah to get him to the field while I went over to help Ollie get going. Ollie and I went to pick up Sam and made it to Jonah’s game just as it was starting. Jonah played a good game. His team lost today, but Jonah made the only goal of the game for his team, so he was at least happy about that. After the game, I took the boys home and fixed lunch for them while Heather went food shopping for the week. When she got home, I stayed on for part of the afternoon helping out with chores around the house. Mid-afternoon, I took off to go home for a late lunch and to make a trip to water plants for friends who are out of town. I wanted to get back to Heather’s to finish up some jobs there I had started, so I skipped going to the gym to ride the stationary bike. I had dinner at Heather’s and when I left tonight, most of the chores that needed to be done before the start of the week were completed. I really don’t know how single mothers survive, but as Heather pointed out, they simply would not be able to allow their kids to do all the things the Goldpebbles do. Some weeks it takes all three of us, Heather, Jed, and me, to cart kids from place to place. This week we are down to two of us, so I will be continuing to help out a bit each day . . . something I love doing.

2019 Life Logs, Day 138: Sonnay Fiddlers and Dinner with My Daughter
Date: Saturday, May 18, 2019
Weather: Sunny with Cape Cod Blue Sky; High 68, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

What a fantastic day! This afternoon I went with Heather and boys to the Falmouth Cultural Festival where Ollie was playing violin with the Sonnay Fiddlers. Sonnay stands for ‘students of Nikki—not all young’ as the fiddlers range in age from Ollie’s age to some my age. Ollie started taking violin lessons from Nikki in January and today was his first public performance. It was informal as the group was playing onstage while people were visiting the booths from around the world, but each piece they played got applause which gave it a concert-like atmosphere. Ollie was the youngest of the group and I was very impressed with his stage presence. Sam and Jonah found friends, so after watching Ollie play with the group for a while, they went outside to kick a soccer ball around. After Ollie finished performing, Heather, Ollie, and I visited the booths from around the world and then went outside to check out the impromptu soccer-football game on the church lawn. The cultural festival was taking place in the community building of the downtown St. Barnabus Episcopal Church and when Ollie asked me to take a photo of him jumping in the air with Sam and Jonah playing with friends in the background, I saw such a beautiful view of downtown Falmouth through my camera lens. The white steeple of the Congregational Church across the Green, the stone spire of St. Barnabus in the foreground, and the beautiful blue sky.

We have had so few sunny, warm days this spring and today was one of them. So as soon as we returned home, Heather and I went into a work frenzy getting soil transported from the drive-way to her newly built deep beds. Brian from next door saw us transporting soil via wheelbarrow and volunteered to transport for us with his little mini-tractor and trailer. Hallelujah! We only had an hour to work before Heather was supposed to head to an evening event, so Brian’s help was just what was needed. Jed is out of town for the week, so Heather had decided to cash in on a free babysitter for the night, something she and Jed had won in waffle at a Woods Hole Oceanographic. The babysitter arrived before we finished doing the garden work, so we quickly finished up and I headed home. I was just settling in when I got a call from Heather. She had changed her mind about going out to the planned event and wanted to know if I would like to go out to dinner with her. Since it is a rare event that I get to spend alone time with my daughter, I jumped at the chance. We had a wonderful evening together. Dinner was fantastic, but the time to just be together and talk was even better. Life is good.

2019 Life Logs, Day 137: Dinner and Movie with the Goldpebbles
Date: Friday, May 17, 2019
Weather: Overcast with a Few Sprinkles; High 65, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

My day was spent dealing with paperwork and making related phone calls. What I thought would take an hour took six hours! But at least I did get the job done. By the time I finished, it was late afternoon and I needed to head to the gym to ride the stationary bike. Before leaving, I spent some time on the phone talking with friend Karen Baranowski who has been at her son’s home babysitting her four grandchildren all week. She and Peter are home for 36 hours and then they head back to stay with the kids until her son and his wife return from a get-away on Tuesday. While I was talking to her, I heard my phone beeping with another incoming call. When we hung up, I checked to see who had called and it said it was Heather. When I called, Ollie answered the phone and explained that he was the who had called to invite me over dinner and to watch a Harry Potter movie. I whole-heartedly accepted the invitation but explained that I had to go to the gym first to do my stint on the stationary bike. When I arrived for dinner, I was given my Mother’s Day present which was a bat house. Heather got one, Jed’s mother got one, and I got one. Bats pollinate plants, they cut down on mosquitoes and other bugs, and flying bat poop is a good thing! Who knew! It is big enough that I will need help hanging it on a tree, but I am happy to welcome bats. I then gave each of the boys a small gift from their Great Aunt Patsy. She chose some small items that belonged to Joe to send to the boys. Ollie got a rechargeable flashlight, Jonah a small flip light to examine treasures, and Sam got drawing calipers to add to his draftsmen supplies. We ate dinner while watching the third Harry Potter movie and afterwards Ollie went straight to the kitchen to write a thank you note to Aunt Patsy. He was supposed to be brushing his teeth, so when he gave me the thank you note to send to her, he apologized that it wasn’t his best writing as he was in a bit of a hurry. But he got that thank you note written, and it looked like neat handwriting to me! Tomorrow there are no soccer games, but Ollie has a his first violin concert. So that is how we will spend our afternoon.

2019 Life Logs, Day 136: Super Coral Reefs
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2019
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 68, Low 48 degrees F
Location: Back Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The highlight of my day was watching Heather moderate a panel discussion following a viewing from the film, Super Reefs: The Future of Corals.

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When I found out about the event, I tried to register, but it was already ‘sold out’. This was an event sponsored by Woods Hole Oceanographic in conjunction with the Woods Hole Film Festival. It was free, but you had to pre-register. Thankfully, the panel discussion following the film viewing was live streamed on Facebook. I watched that way and even took a few photos of my computer screen to document the event. The panel of experts were all excellent and Heather did a fantastic job of moderating the discussion. I know I am prejudiced, but she is really good! One of the panelists was so passionate that it brought me to tears. Super reefs are coral reefs that are able to survive the warming of ocean waters caused by global warming. Some of these super reefs can breed resilient larvae that can reseed other reefs. The most passionate of the panel members is a Woods Hole researcher who has dedicated her life’s work to try and save the earth’s coral reefs by identifying and studying super reefs. In answering a question from the audience, she stated that 80 some percent of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is dead as a result of a huge spike in temperatures in 2015 to 2017. Breaks my heart when I think about this, but it was good to hear the panelists look to the future with things that can be done to try and minimize destruction as we move forward. The film was made to bring attention this issue and I hope I’ll be able to see the full film this summer during the Woods Hole Film Festival.

Otherwise, today was spent settling in after the trip to Tennessee. I went to the gym to ride the stationary bike, went to the grocery store to restock my refrigerator, did a quick laundry, stopped at the post office to pick up my mail, and then came home to fix dinner. For whatever reason, the trip to Tennessee was not good for my knee. It is warm to the touch and a bit swollen, obviously inflamed. But riding the stationary bike at the gym helped loosen it up a bit. I’ll start icing it again, and if that, plus a few days of consistent exercise doesn’t solve the problem, I’ll make an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon’s assistant. But I’m hoping that by getting back into my exercise and walking routines, things will improve.