Day 295, Year 7: Yet Another Canning Day
Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Weather: Back to Sunny Weather
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
While Mark worked at West Marine today, I went to Heather’s to can the
tomato sauce we processed yesterday. Over the past week and a half we have
canned 42 pints of sauce from locally-grown organic tomatoes-not quite a
pint a week for the year, but close. If we bought these pints at the local
Farmer’s Market we would pay $5 for each one. We can go to the grocery
store and buy organic sauce for half that price, but it is very important to
us to have locally-grown food. Sam and Jonah have caught on to this and are
actually starting to ask where the food they are eating is grown. But we
are putting a halt to the canning until the next wave of green beans come in
from the garden. There are just too many other things to do.
Tomorrow Mark and I head to Boston. Mark has an appointment with a
parathyroid surgeon to get her opinion of what should be done about his
hyperparathyroidism issue. For whatever reason, one or more of his four
parathyroid glands is not functioning properly and as a result the amount of
calcium in his blood is too high. And the high blood calcium means it is
coming from his bones. He is getting treatment for the loss of calcium in
his bones, but if possible, he would like to solve the problem-not just
treat the symptom. So we will see what the surgeon suggests tomorrow.
Mark works Friday and Saturday at West Marine and we have a fun day planned
for Sunday. Good friends, Scott and Kelly McPherson, and their three little
boys will come to Woods Hole and join us for a day sail. Then in the late
afternoon, we will head through the “hole” to Buzzards Bay and meet up with
Susie Klein and Jim Hammitt in Hadley Harbor. We met Susie in our HAM radio
classes a few months before taking off around the world. She was getting
her HAM license because she and Jim were heading across the Atlantic to the
Med. Jim was going to be on sabbatical in Toulouse, France, for a couple of
years and they wanted to have their sailboat, Reveille, close by. They
spent two years in France, came home, and then went back for another two
years. Susie emailed last night saying they would be in Buzzards Bay this
weekend, so we were able to make arrangements to meet. Then on Monday we
plan to head back to Woods Hole, and hope to get Heather, Jed, and boys
onboard for a day of swimming, snorkeling, and kayaking in Great Bay (the
harbor just outside Eel Pond). Labor Day is the official end of the summer
season here and we want to celebrate it in style.
Heather and I talked to Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco on Skype today. Coco is
now a month old and she is a beautiful baby. It was great to see her and to
talk to Justin and Jo about the possibility of getting the Handley-Goldstone
crew together as soon as we can, possibly flying JJZ&C here before we leave
the first of November. We’ll have to see how that plays out, but I am very
anxious to see Ziggy again and get a chance to hold our newest grandchild.
