Day 230, Year 7: Lonesome George
Date: Monday, June 25, 2012
Weather: Overcast with Rain
Location: At Heather and Jed’s in E Falmouth, MA
The sad news was announced today that Lonesome George is dead. We ‘met’
Lonesome George when we visited the Galapagos Islands in 2006. He was the
last survivor of a subspecies of giant tortoises that inhabit those islands.
He was over a 100 years old and had avoided every attempt to have him mate.
When we visited the Galapagos, George was in a corral with a female and it
was hard to get good photos. But I will post my photo of him here to record
this historic event. My nephew Rex and his new wife Diana are still in the
Galapagos on their honeymoon and I will be interested to hear their account
of the death of Lonesome George.
After today’s chemo treatment, Mark has only two more to go. And there is
no one in the happier about that then Mark. The last treatment will be on
July 23 and I think Mark is starting to count the hours. The treatments are
starting to take their toll and Mark didn’t get his usual boost from today’s
treatment. He usually feels good the day of treatment and the following two
days and then crashes. But after the crash two weeks ago, he never bounced
back. So we’re figuring we are in a gradual decline until the end of July.
Then he will have to start the battle to regain his strength and stamina.
For now we are just thankful that he feels as good as he does.
Tomorrow is Jonah’s third birthday. His party will be on Saturday once Jed
and Jed’s parents are all here. But Heather is giving him one gift tomorrow
morning and has planned a special day for him. I can’t believe Oliver is
already three months old and Jonah is three years old.
A boat note . . . I took Sam and Jonah with me late this afternoon and went
to Windbird to charge the batteries. We had left the refrigerator and
freezer running and the system was down to zero charge. We stayed about an
hour and a half and only got the charge up to 45 per cent. I emptied the
refrigerator of the few things I had in it and brought them back to
Heather’s. Thankfully I hadn’t moved the freezer items back after the
haul-out. We are only here until Wednesday, but by turning off the
refrigeration I won’t have to go back to do additional charging. That
little gas-powered charger we have been thinking about buying is looking
more and more desirable. We both hate having to run the boat engine every
day to charge, so sometime in the next couple of weeks we will look more
seriously at the addition of a generator. We have resisted this for years,
but maybe the time has come. Our wind and solar systems just can’t keep up
with our rate of consumption.
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| 120625 Day 230 Cape Cod, USA–Lonesome George |
