Dry State

Despite excellent efforts from all concerned water remains unavailable at the taps in the Keeper's Cottage here at Scituate Light.  We have become expert on the bucket generated flush.

Wednesday an attempt was made to steam the ice from the frozen water line.  The steam reached 21 feet out into the yard, (near the rose bushes on the ocean side) where it got hung up on a water department shut off. 

Thursday saw the Water department run a temporary line from a neighbor's house.  We were more than grateful to get some dishes done and a hot shower. After roughly 90 minutes that line froze too.

We had filled up every available bucket prior to the freeze and got through Friday with a run to refill the buckets at the Little Red Schoolhouse. Today saw another refill at the GAR Hall. 

One picture to wrap up this tale of woe. This is the piece of ice in the hose that connected to the Cottage from the neighbors.  Temperatures are expected to remain quite low well into the coming week. We will refill our buckets and visit my sister's for showers.

Water Mystery

Today began with Julie being able to wash the dishes and make her morning pot of coffee.  Since about ten o'clock though the water has been at a trickle.  We have made due and I have made trips under the house to take a look.  It seems to be improving a bit at a time. When I shut everything else off I can get a meager, but hot, shower going.  The toughest part was the fight through the drift that buried the bulkhead.

We have been here six full years today.  What an education it has been.

Shoveling

The wind is  the enemy today.

Adding Up

Storms have been in line for several weeks now with no end in sight.  We had one significant tidal event as well.  Snow is up to the sky and as I write there is a dune out in the parking lot I would have to dig through to get a car off the Point.

The big tide was January 26 into the morning of the 27th.  The tide was measured at 14.46 ft. We had never seen a higher one here in our six years. Some rocks were rolled into the yard from just beyond the fence but otherwise there was no damage to be found.  Once again thanks have to go out to RDA and their team who built the wall. It did all it was asked to do and then some.

One unexpected complication was that power was shut off by the Town in anticipation of not being able to service Cedar Point due to the tide. We were asked to evacuate and only ran the generator between tides as a result.  It got very cold once again and I feared losing pipes. You can see in one picture we resorted to sleeping in the kitchen as it was the warmest room that night.  In the end only one section down stairs split. Julie was here when it happened and shot into action; she shut off the water and laid on the towels. Tom Galligan and crew took care of the repairs within a few hours and even brought heat back into a room that had seen pipes split two years ago.  I had managed to nurse the generator and a short gas supply enough to keep everything else from freezing up. Many thanks to my neighbor who helped me get more gas, Don Jacobs, and to Don Ferreira, for a push when I was stuck in a drift coming back.

Here are some pictures of the aftermath of that storm.

This is far less debris than a tide of this height would have brought us before.  This could be driven through easily without any damage to a car.

We have had several other snow storms on top of the big tide and shoveling snow is one way to get in shape in a hurry.  I have been thinking a great deal about my predecessors here of long ago and as a result there will be no complaining.  When I think of John Prouty or Frank Cushman rowing across the harbor, melting snow for water, eating God knows what from a steaming pot in a fireplace, I just keep shoveling and shut up. My neighbors have had it much harder as these pictures will hint.

The snow is still falling and blowing around right now.  These are some of  cool things (pun intended) you can get when that happens.

I need to update the blog tomorrow with more information about the new cameras.  I have heard that people are frustrated by the images and think I can clear that up.  Here are a couple of shots that show what I can see with them.

What I like about the camera is the ability to double click and generate one of these images. (Double clicking again returns you to the four channel image)  I also love seeing the light turning at night.  I think you get the sense you are in the Light with these images which was my goal all along.

That said,  I am working on bringing the old cameras back into the mix.  One has been placed in the very small window that looks over harbor.  Another is at the platform level that we allow guests to visit.  The harbor view looks like this:

The platform will let you pan the four windows and even see the stairs. I can already consider families waving to Mom at home from this level of the Light.

Consider the cameras a work in progress but be thankful all the same.  I know I am thrilled to have the big one in place.  I was in Worcester this past Saturday and I was checking in on the storm's beginnings on my phone through the Hank Stahr Camera.