Saturday, November 24, 2018

Kick Off


The Christmas wreath (one of the requirements of the job) went up without a hitch on Friday afternoon. The wind dropped down and, with new lines and new clips, the R&C farm big wreath was pulled up and secured in less than 30 minutes.  Lots of photography today as the weather became so mild that folks could get out and visit.

Some adjustments were made to the web cams as well. I am convinced I can make one more tweak that would give us the best possible look at storms but that may have to wait until the spring.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Rocky Top

There are storms here that bring in stone. I shovel that stone some of the way back to where it came from or I use it for another purpose. I don't think I will be shoveling these.


This pile of rocks came ashore from a barge this morning and will eventually make its way to the end of the north jetty. The patch looks bigger than the small jetty (in its very broken state) looks. Kids have been playing on the pile all day. All weekend it was the rubber ramp that brought the backhoe out to the barge that served as jungle gym. It was like a giant diving board extending out into the small bay. I would have thought that the kids would come off covered in dirt and fuel but I didn't hear any yelling.  We will see what the next step is tomorrow. Will they add to the pile or begin to work getting these transported to the end of the jetty?  Check back later to solve the mystery.

Monday, October 1, 2018

The Best of Times

This is the ideal time of year here. There is a pace to the days which is so much more healthy than the scramble of the summer and the wondering of the winter. The spring always sees so much to tend to (all enjoyable) and at a breakneck pace again. The fall is more leisurely.

Storm windows are down and a great number of windows got washed when that happened. That good look only holds up until the next wind comes up but it is a good feeling all the same. The kayaks have been strapped up in the basement and bit by bit the summer furniture is cleared from the yard so that there will be room for the boardwalk in a months time. I ran the generator a little bit longer last weekend to see that it got a good run before we really need it. I dialed back the timers for the Light and for the parking lot too. The hoses were put away and I began to cut back some flowers. The daisies have begun to pop to put an exclamation point on the gardens.  Autumn is good.



Each of these pictures gives you another slice of the fall. In the top shot you get a sense of all the color that arrives when we have a red sky at night.  There are still a good number of boats in the harbor and the picture gets about 20 percent of what the naked eye saw that night. It was amazing.

In the bottom shot a wet suit clad neighbor walked down from First Cliff and went fishing off a stone 40 yards offshore. At first I thought he was a surfer until he wasn't riding anything in. He was out there two nights and I had a guest come up to the house worried he had somehow become marooned. Because I had seen him walk in the night before I settled our guest's nerves and sent him along. I don't think any fish were caught.

October knocks and we let it in. It is the best time here.


Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Caissons Keep Rolling Along

We are all set for rebuilding the jetty. The Army Corps has fenced in a big part of the parking lot but has allowed us access to the driveway. The young official in the driver's seat could not have been more helpful. Just as was done with the building of the revetment we will follow along as the project unfolds. Stay tuned.

Saturday, September 8, 2018

This Just In

It is rare that we have breaking news from Cedar Point but today is the day.

The Army Corps of Engineers will begin the reconstruction of the North Jetty on Monday September 10, 2018. A significant chunk of the Lighthouse parking lot will be fenced in and access to the Tower will be limited to the path that runs along the revetment.  Access from the harborside will be limited dramatically by trailers and other materials.  Here is a map of the area impacted. The Cottage and Light are just out of frame at the bottom of the image.


We will be figuring out how to access the driveway and how we will get deliveries in the next few days. We are very grateful to have this work done and will roll with the punches. It is a good thing for us, for our neighbors and the wider town to have this repair done.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Facelift

For the last two weeks the runway and the cottage have undergone a facelift courtesy of contractor Warren Cowing. Time and tide had battered the house and it was time to upgrade the siding. This old place will be tight for the winters from now on. I added the buoys and the cameras back and this is the reveal.


I added a few planters and some new plants yesterday. Keeps the water off the foundation where an ancient sill had to be replaced.


This final image comes from a restored camera. Once again our thanks go out to the family of Hank Stahr for making this happen. This camera should offer a remarkable look at winter storms.


This was a labor intensive project. There was a ton of lifting, loading, staging, painting, and cleaning up. I think the result speaks for itself. I learned a lot watching and taking a part. There may be one more chore before the year is out as part of the kitchen roof may need to be brought up to speed.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Getting the Work Done

A lot is in place for the summer and that is the result of many having put in some time.

Lets start with the boardwalk. It remains a very popular destination for all of our guests. Russell Totman reassembled the beach in late May and on Memorial Day weekend I got it installed. Thanks also go out to Patrick Kearney who pitched in on Sunday morning and to his mom Marianne. Thanks too are sent to Warren Cowing who helped me late on Sunday.

We start with this and end with that:



The gardens have also made an amazing comeback. Where we once had large pieces of asphalt, seven inches of sand and a million stones, we now have daisies.


The banners are up and people continue to read the story of the Light and of the other historical sites on their visits. There is a spot for one or two more and I am working on how to fill in that blank.


A new garden has been created by the back door. It replaces a dying shrub that go pulled out last year. With time this will be a great entryway to the Cottage.


Next open house is in mid July. The old place should be looking good with new siding and a newly painted fence. Painting the fence and resetting the last two cameras will wrap up a busy maintenance season. When you consider where we were in March it has all happened in a rush.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

First Open House for 2018

Getting the place in shape is easier and easier as the years go by. Julie and I cleaned and hid and organized the old place into tour shape in no time this morning.

It is a very windy day and that will wreak some havoc on the guests. How do I know that? I got the weather station back on line this morning. As you can see on the left we are once again connected to Weather Underground. The station is not in the best of spots right now as we will be having some of the house sided and it will be reinstalled in at a higher elevation when that project is complete. There will be some moving around of the web cams then as well.

Thanks go out to Mark Flaherty for coming over and doing a terrific job painting all the trim and the new windows. The Cottage looks fantastic for his efforts.  Another piece of good news is that he found very little damage to trim boards for which we did not already have a plan.  He headed from here to the Bates House where he did another fabulous job.

The boardwalk remains in the yard as the beach is still too narrow in several spots to bear it. New benches have been installed along the parking lot by the Cedar Point Association and the Town of Scituate. Guests will have to enjoy those until we can get the beach back in shape. I have tried to do it a wheelbarrow at a time but the job is bigger than that effort.  Thanks go to Lorraine Devin especially for her efforts to replace the old benches and the old barrels with 21st century materials. She really carried that project and all of Cedar Point is grateful.

The fence still needs to be reset by the Tower. I haven't made much progress there. I did get the flag pole back up on the Tower though I won't be flying it today as it is just too windy right now. If the weather station was at a higher elevation it would surely be reading gusts to the 30's.

Next weekend will see the planting of the annuals. The perrenials are coming back strong. My efforts to pull sand and stone out of those beds paid off. I brought in some dirt and manure as well and that seems to help. I was gifted some sea grass as well that will hold up no matter the winter.

The banners are back up along the north side and it is a pleasure to see people stop and read them. I love it when people want to learn and a tool is available for them to do it.  That is what the tours are all about and it is almost time.


Saturday, January 6, 2018

Update:

The Minot Light camera is back on as I went up top and moved it to a window that is not iced up. The ice is deeeeep up there.

I was going to try to take down the flag as well but that ropes are covered in at least four inches of ice.

The wreath let loose late yesterday when when of the ropes frayed and broke. I thought about cutting that down but decided to look at it again in the morning.

Two small windows were cracked in the front of the Tower and I patched those up with some cut down shingles in a stop gap for now. I will look that over again in the morning as well.



Hint of a sunset in these last two. Remember that clicking on the picture will give you a slide show of all the photographs of a given post.




Friday, January 5, 2018

How We Roll







A day apart. How we roll.

Just Getting Around To It Now

Power has been out since 1:00 Thursday and while I have had the generator running (God Bless It) the internet access has been out since 3:00 only returning in the wee hours of the morning.  I will take the chance to add in the clips I mentioned in the last post. One of them might be my masterpiece.

 National Weather Service is marking this tide as equal to that of the Blizzard of 78. I knew I loved this seawall; I may not known just how much. As you will see there is a lot of water. And Birds.


Around 1:00 am two good size front end loaders cleared a track off Cedar Point. They piled it up a little on me at the end of the driveway but nothing insurmountable. I was able to kick it down and can get Haley to work in the morning. More importantly I will be able to get out and get more gas if need be. National Grid has a posted time of 7:00 am to restore power to Lighthouse Road. Somehow Rebecca Road never lost the juice. If that company can get the job done then this one will be behind us and the aftermath will be dealing with deeply cold temperatures for a day and a half.


I will also have to reset all the cameras when this event has played itself out. When power is lost there is a chain reaction that leads to all the settings that allow folks to access this site to be wiped out.  I used the cameras a lot today and will be posting some of those pictures when I get them assembled in a sensible pattern.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

A Few Clips from the Afternoon

Got a few short videos of the afternoon as it unfolded. Running the generator now with fingers crossed as the temperature drops. I did go out and move some of the slushy snow from the driveway as best I could. It will be very icy down at the end but I think I will be able to maneuver through it with a some ice melt help. The tic, tic tic you hear is the flag pole line banging on the Tower. I have a few others that I will include in a later post.







The Wind Shifts and Intensifies

The wind has shifted to the northwest and has covered the window where the Seawall camera sits. I will have to see if I can do anything about that from inside as the wind is a steady 30 miles an hour now and good sense dictates staying in for all but the big ticket items like the generator. I will see if I can generate a work around for this issue.

Wind Coming Up

We are expecting some wind and snow today. The wind has come first. The Minot camera has been knocked out of focus by the shake of the Tower in these gusts. All the others are on line but might be blurry from the rain.  The weather station is reporting 3 inches but that strikes me as a glitch. There is a little warning sign on my station screen that tells me that number is flawed. It has been a relief to have the temperature improve from the teens to the thirties. Humidity in the house was very, very low and you could feel  the loss in your skin and throat.  The biggest gust recorded thus far has been 39 miles per hour.  The predicted tide could go over 14 feet which will test the big sea wall. I expect the smaller of the two jetties to take the biggest beating. The stones stacked on the end are in pretty shaky condition already. I have taken a "Before" picture in case there is an "After"

The top image comes from today. The bottom is yesterday. 


This shot is also from yesterday when ice had nearly covered the whole of the harbor. The image below is from New Year's Eve when the latest Supermoon was captured by the Looking East camera.


New Spot for the Blog from Now On

 This site has been a good friend for the past 12 plus years but it has its limitations.  To address those limitations I have set up a new w...