No time to procrastinate

My to do list is getting shorter. We leave in a week to become caretakers at Bass Harbor Head lighthouse. If you are one of the 100,000! people who visit annually, please say hi.

The National Park Service acquired it from the US Coast Guard in 2020 and we will be its first NPS caretakers! Mount Desert Island is technically an island but we can drive there.

Time to clean the fridge. Meals become interesting as we eat through its contents.

Time to finish projects I can’t take with me. Actually, I will take my latest with me in its finished form. Back in March, I started weaving a queen size blanket made of alpaca silk yarn. I planned and calculated but still ran short of yarn 2/3 through and could not find more. I found some similar though, waited for it to be delivered, and made do.

Hot off the loom

I wove about 10 yards of fabric, cut it into three panels and, poof, we have a blanket to take to Maine.

Tim is in full form so I no longer am responsible for EVERYTHING!! Of course, he is already doing too much.

Sparky is sporting a new windshield but won’t be making this trip with us. He is strictly a lake boat. I found a great guy in the north country with a can do attitude and he did it!

We plan to bike the 45+ miles of carriage road in the park and I converted Tim’s bike to fit me, while he had a new recumbent bike delivered to Maine.

My car may look like the Beverly Hillbillies because I also fixed my roof rack just in case.

Off we go.

Coyotes sing for our supper

Heard from our front porch

It’s a jungle out there. We hear coyotes most nights, deer snack on our shrubs, rabbits keep the driveway clean of clover and greens, and I am not sure what the snakes do, except cause me to let out a shout whenever I see them.

Fawn feeling right at home

Snake in the shrubs

Summer is flying by with so much pent up activity taking place. But at the same time the Delta variant is surging. Stay safe, get vaccinated.

Wildflower garden

Our wildflower patch turned out to be mostly black eyed susans, which are pretty nonetheless. The honeybees aren’t interested. Our untended field is just as pretty.

Note the cute bee-shed she-shed still standing

The morning glories reseeded themselves

We clearly needed a vacation from our busy schedule. Tim booked a little cabin on Lake George and we brought Sparky along for the ride.

Headed to another swimming bay

We swim when we can and are just chillin’, sometimes literally. I’m wearing a wool cap this morning. I decided to try my hand at jewelry making this trip. It’s another hobby that travels well.

Les Bijoux

It is surprisingly relaxing just getting out of your own environment. There are no overhanging chores waiting, so the mind can wander: watching ducks, looking at clouds, and taking daytime naps.

And there’s always another boat ride on Sparky.

the benefits of being flexible

We had hopes of this year’s maiden voyage with kids and grandkids on Smokey, the 1971 Starcraft Sprint boat previously known as Sparky. We drove an hour to a lake located midway between us, launched her flawlessly, started her up, but the tell-tale, otherwise known as the pisser, wasn’t shooting water.

Kids were already in the boat, eager for an adventure. We tinkered a bit, to no avail. Since we couldn’t be sure the engine block wouldn’t overheat and crack, we came up with plan b. And all concurred.

Picnic at a great playground then off to a rock waterfall you can ride, followed by dinner at a brewery and a minor, minor league baseball game. A good time was had by all.

I’m happy to report a minor fix at home solved the problem while I wait for parts for this 50 year old engine to arrive.

I headed south to New York City to meet up with dear friends from med school. My plan was to ride the bus for mass transit. In theory, this was a good idea, the MTA app even reported the number of people on the bus.

Alas, due to midtown traffic, it took forever and I was late for a meeting with a former colleague. So I walked – 12 miles one day – or took the subway. All were masked and tried to social distance.

Manhattan is growing. There is a new park called Little Island on the west side, built on one of the old piers. We viewed it from the roof of the Whitney, where I learned how to calculate the temperature from crickets. It worked!

We ate at a rooftop restaurant that somehow was louder than most indoor spaces. The food was good and the view of the skyline and overhead was lovely. But the din was unbearable.

As soon as possible, we headed to a quiet, excellent Sicilian restaurant, Norma, where we really had a chance to catch up without shouting.

And we took the family out Smokey this weekend. She peed like a champ!

French lessons

I had just started studying French before the pandemic shut everything down. Luckily my teachers transitioned to Zoom with mastery. I live in a rural setting and the classes were 1.5 hours away. Now I take my class in the guest bedroom cum office (one of only two rooms in the house with a door).

I recent discovered this. You may already know it but somehow I missed most of English grammar. Tout le monde (all the world, everyone) is singular. We are all in this together and everyone is united. Just think about that. People are individuals but noone is an island.

Summer weather is here. I took my gear and scoped out a new fishing spot.

And got the boat set for this year’s maiden voyage.

Bonne journée tout le monde.

Lake boat

When we sold our last sailboat, Tim thought he was free of boats but I had a vision of dragging a small boat around the Adirondacks and zipping around in its many lakes. Sparky met the bill – small, a little funky, cute as a button, and reliable. She is a 50 year old Starcraft Sprint with her original Mercury 50 outboard. She has already outlasted one truck. Now Eddie takes her for her rides (Eddie because he is an Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer, 33 years her junior).

If anyone can replace a windshield on Sparky, please let me know.

She has been in at least 10 lakes with us. Yesterday we ventured to northern Lake George from Rogers Rock campground. It was a perfect day, warm, sunny and not crowded except for two loons that got a little close.

We dropped anchor off Vicars Island and Tim swam his usual mile, I did a little less and while I procrastinated getting in the water, they swam close and started singing. What a treat.

I swam for a bit then clambered back aboard (actually the hardest part of the swim because the ladder leans into the V- hull), and lounged on the pull out seat.

We wrapped it (and perhaps summer) up with soft serve ice cream. Just what I dreamed.

Here we are

And so lucky to be where we are.

Pause continues and now I am living in the basement for a couple of weeks. It is well worth it though. I snuck out to see two of my grand darlings who live a long drive away. Now I keep Tim safe by keeping my distance. I don’t know when I will see the little ones again because after my visit they resumed day care for everyone’s mental health.

Thank goodness the weather is nice. It’s like camping. I have a cooler in the basement and a Coleman stove set up in the porch.

And there is plenty to do. My wildflower field has finally taken and the pollinators visit often.

My veggie garden never looked so good and there is always the shed to work on. Tim helped me with the roofing panels. Next step is to shingle it. I have to learn how to “snap” a straight line. I hope trim covers all my measuring and cutting errors. As my daughter the engineer told me, “Little bit a caulk, little bit of paint, make a painter what he is and carpenter what he ain’t”. Love it.

The little boat brings much joy. We have explored several lakes with it. An island camping trip was jinxed and cancelled, but we took a day trip yesterday to Upper Saranac Lake instead. We found a great bay to swim in and the weather was perfect.

We’ve been swimming about a mile every other day. Great tension reliever. I have an mp3 player that works in water that I love to listen to.

This island had one building, a chapel. Boat access only.

Our outing was followed by a sandwich from our favorite deli, curbside pickup only, and a soft serve ice cream enjoyed at this park.

The drive home was regaled with a full moon rising over the mountains. I am enjoying all the outdoors because I don’t intend to gather indoors until vaccines become available. In the meantime, as my new hero Dr. Fauci says clearly and often, avoid crowds, wear a mask and wash your hands.

First you buy a little boat

A takeoff from the title of one of my favorite books, “First you row a little boat”. Well this is my sequence. We sold our sailboat and my plan was to buy a little runabout we could tow from lake to lake in the Adirondacks.

I found a 15 foot 1966 aluminum Starcraft in Lake Placid. The captain and I took it for a spin, the 1971 Mercury motor ran fine, and I bought it.

Then I needed a little truck to tow it. In some ways, we have crossed over to the dark side and a fuel efficient truck would soften the landing. I found a 1997 Ford Ranger, 300 miles away, but the price was right and it had a current inspection.

Since my son lives nearby, I asked him to buy it for me. He saw it, confirmed it ran well, but was a little incredulous it was the truck of my dreams. In fact, he got pulled over within the first ten minutes of driving it.

I took mass transit to the truck, got it registered and took it for its maiden voyage- six hours north to the Adirondacks.

My son and daughter-in-law tracked my trip and I arrived home uneventfully.

Now the captain is off trying to haul the boat home while I visit my daughter in DC. Hopefully the next photo will have them ( boat and trailer, not boat and captain) tethered together in my driveway. 

They both need work but are simple enough it might be fun?