Day 338, Year 7: Smashing Success
Date: Thursday, October 11, 2012
Weather: Beautiful Day, High Temp Around 60 degrees F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Mark met with Dr. Stephen at Mass General today for a post-op check-up. And
really all she had to say was that the parathyroid surgery was a “smashing
success.” It is always good to hear such a positive review from your
surgeon. Basically all Mark has to do as follow-up is take one Tums tablet
a day as a source of calcium. The appointment didn’t take long, so we had
an early lunch, did a little shopping, and headed home. We made it home in
time to go to the last Farmer’s Market of the summer and fall season and we
delivered a ten gallon stainless steel pot to Carrie of Peachtree Farms.
This is a pot that I once used to make cheese. It easily head eight gallons
of cow’s milk that resulted in an eight pound round of hard cheese. The
actual capacity of the pot is 38 and a half quarts. It is huge. I haven’t
used the pot since the early 80’s and in a conversation with Carrie a few
weeks ago, I discovered that she needed one. She runs a small organic farm
(all by herself with one helper) and sells her produce at the Farmer’s
Market each week. I was delighted to find a home for that pot and in return
Carrie is going to plant a 25-foot row of tomatoes for us next year. She is
sure it will yield more than a 100 pounds of tomatoes which is the amount we
estimate we need to make a year’s supply of tomato sauce for Heather and Jed
and for us. The stock pot can be bought for about $200 today, although the
list price is over $300. But then the price of organic tomatoes is $2-$3 a
pound. So it was a great trade for both of us.
Heather fixed a fantastic dinner for us this evening with scallops from the
local fish cooperative. She incorpated them in a Thai curry. Yummy! While
she did that, I picked tomatoes, basil, peppers, and green beans from the
garden. Heather had heard that it was going to frost tonight so I scurried
to get those tender crops picked. I just checked the weather, however, and
don’t see that it is going to cool down until tomorrow night, and even then
the temp is only forecasted to get down to 36 degrees. We didn’t have a
frost until much later last year, so I’m hoping tomorrow night is an
anomaly. But we are preparing for cooler weather by looking for a dock for
Windbird so that we can plug in and have heat while Justin and Jo are here.
We stopped at Fiddler’s Cove this afternoon to see if we could go back there
for a couple of weeks, and they do have room. We’d rather stay in Eel Pond,
however, so we will continue to explore the two possibilities there. One
way or another, we’ll hope to move the boat next Thursday. And two weeks
after that, we are planning to sail south. I just can’t believe the time is
passing so quickly.
