Another Remarkable Gift

This morning as we celebrated Mother's Day here on the Point, there was a knock on the door.

Mark Poritsky, son of longtime Point resident Ray Poritsky, had brought us a gift.  His father, a Brown professor and illustrator of anatomy texts, had a painting at his cottage.  Mark wanted us to have it.

He explained that it was a bit different from most of the work his father had done before and that the family attributed the differences to the onset of illness.  We hung it up immediately and thanked him profusely. 

 It is different than most and it is here.  We are so, so, lucky.

Shifting Views

With the winter behind us and Easter here, it was time to move the web cam facing north back to the Harbor side so we can watch the basin fill up with boats.  One lonely sailboat stayed on a mooring all winter long and soon it will have company. Check out the link above.

Full bore Spring in here. This week there was a beautiful sailboat, under sail making its way out and back in. The floats are in as of yesterday at Bulman's Marine and in Cole Parkway. Julie was remarking just how quickly bulbs and forsythia have bloomed.  I put in an hour or so yesterday morning and got half of the garden around the flagpole cleaned up.  With a little bit of Preen to knock down the weeds and some razzle dazzle with a few perennial cuttings, that garden will be ready for a dose of geraniums and marigolds in May.

My main goal today was to get the top of the Tower back in shape. A bird somehow made its way in and trashed the place with seeds and some sort of purple berry.  Our neighbor Gerry Houghton, DBA GBH Electric,  had had to go up there to replace the light this week.  Sometime on Tuesday night it blew out.  I was embarrassed that he had to work around all the guava so it was up top with screwdriver and vac to knock the place back into shape.  While there I decided to rework the cameras.

One of my targets was to see if the camera would pick up the newly operating windmill on the Driftway.  I had a shot where you could see it spinning but it was very faint.  That will be one of the new parameters for the next camera.  People checking in on the blog will have to be able to spin the camera to pick up the turbine. This is a picture I took from the road overlooking Peggotty Beach.

While people are still bundled up as they walk, the numbers are going up and soon the houses out here that get shut up for the winter will be opened up again.  This morning began with the annual daybreak service for Easter and the minister's voice floated in on the breeze to the bedroom.  I heard him say that the service would begin at 6:14 and my second thought was, 'It takes all kinds.' I will not share my first thought. I was telling someone yesterday that the when this event was held the first year we were here I awoke to a sound I could not place. The crunch on the rocks was like a million crackers being stomped on at once.

Three Years and Counting

The Point has been as quiet as the skies and posting for the sake of posting is not really the point.

We have been here three years now.  The rewards of the place have deepened considerably and they were already considerable from the start.  This is a place I know now; a place that when I hear a bang my mind's eye  can provide the damage. A place where each creek in a step is familiar, each light in a window is a time of day to the minute, each rotation of the light is a deep breath before sleeping.  This cottage and this tower and these grounds fit me (I think all three of us) like the oldest pair of slippers and the worn out jeans and the moth eaten sweater and the brutalized baseball cap that you would never, ever, ever think of throwing away.

The history has become a part of us and we hope us a part of the history.  The celebration last year and the work to resurrect the shed and the utility room were like a movie road trip that reveals some unknowns about the characters and resolves itself with a new kind of bond.  I can see the flowers to be arranged in the gardens already.  I can see what I would like to do with some dicey spots in the kitchen.  I can see it is time for a paint job in places and I can clean this place from top to bottom in about 30 minutes without cracking a sweat.  And in case it sounds like I am getting jaded, let me assure you that every morning and every night there is another chance to notice the blue of the ocean, (yesterday the blue of a Bic pen cover) or the less than flame, more than  orange color of the sun in the west, or the more than murmur, less than rumble of the water on the rocks out front here as they remake the ocean side beach one more time.  It is a constant sensory extravaganza, sound, sight, smell, the knock around of the wind the other night had the house shaking again nearly as bad as the first week we were here and I was seasick in bed. The place is in my bones, and yet it is still teaching me something, still exciting, still a challenge, (birds got into the Tower and trashed the place; a purple red berry mess all over the auxiliary light), still a place to plan and share and care for, be diligent about. I don't get sick of the old stories and I know I am going to get some new ones as the season changes and the crowds thicken.

Pretty fast three years I'd say. Lots to do and lots of growing.  Thanks for checking in from time to time to see what's going on.

No Corn Cob Pipe or Button Nose

As the snow less winter continues to unfold, I was struck today by how quickly accustom we have become to it. Low temperatures are still the rule but a clean track for the cars, no banks to struggle to see around, and a whole set of different muscles we haven't had to use at all, has made this as memorable as a winter with drifts up to the eaves.

People are out and about.  Today a women in 2 inch heals walked all over the beach at low tide photographing rocks and impressions in the sand.  Kids have been photographed on the sea wall; some bundled up against the wind, many not so bundled up. Yesterday I saw a rabbit cross the road as I was driving off the point.  What he and his brothers are eating right now is anyone's guess.  (Grass I planted last fall is green but there isn't much of it.)  There is a filler plant in the garden by the flagpole that seems to have grown since the fall though; I noticed it today when I considered going out there to weed.

That's the kind of winter it has been.  The Groundhog isn't back in the hole yet with his feet up and I am thinking about weeding. The New England Fatalist in me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Will March be the craziest month ever?  The Blizzard of 78 began 34 years ago tonight and today there is a moon that matches the light in the Tower. Are we destined to pay some kind of a price for being able to clean up the yard and go the dump in a sweatshirt?  Haley headed across the parking lot in slippers and no socks today and I only  winced a little.  The cat has spent nearly every night out and if there are rabbits around then he has probably had his share of mice to chase.  Its weird.

A year ago there was five feet of snow on the ground and my boots were getting old.  I had a new bag of salt at the ready and three shovels for each of us.  Maybe the history lesson is that you never can tell.  Or maybe March will shut me up about the weather.

Long Time

The blog has been on the back burner as the day jobs have stacked up.

It has been pleasantly quiet on the Point.  The holidays passed, basketball resumed, I have thought that this small task and that have not been worthy of a report.

One project that has emerged is a collaboration between Julie and I with some photographs she is taking.  On their own, they may be the basis for the Historical Society calendar for 2013.  We are going to tackle that challenge with some help from our friend Nancy. 

What I have been fooling with at odd moments is adding in some special effects to the raw material of Julie's shots.  Here are some examples:

The goal has been to enhance the light or the bring out a detail through cropping. They are pretty good to start.  I am having fun learning how to put them through the software to a different advantage. 

Remember that you can click on any picture to make it bigger.

In the Gallery

Even December mornings have a unique feel to them here. 

The colors this morning were like those in Surrealist painting.

 I got to the kitchen sink and knew I had to take a few shots.

Perfect Day for an Elf to Visit

A wonderful tradition was extended another year.

Flying Santa began visiting Lighthouses and Coast Guard stations in 1929.  We welcomed here to Cedar Point today around 2:30 this afternoon.  A great crowd was managed perfectly by the Scituate police and fire department and no one went home with out a smile.  Julie's photographs are below.  I  will be adding in some video taken from the ground and from the Tower later.  You will want to check back to see the sweep of the helicopter as it delivered Old Saint Nick to Old Scituate Light.

Santa arrived roaring out of the sun from the south and circled Lighthouse Park and the Light twice before swinging into place in the center of the parking lot.  He was met by Betty Kincaid and Dave Ball of the Cedar Point Association, and then Julie, Haley and I were feted with glorious gifts just as the keepers of the most remote Lights once were.  A bag filled with fruits and nuts and sweets to tide us over through the long winter ahead.  I can guarantee we will not fall prey to scurvy here!  I also received some amazing photographs and documents connected to the history of the Light.  That package was signed Ebenezer Osbourne though. He was last seen serving here in 1849.  I will need to figure out if I have a ghost story here after all.

Attending to Santa was Dolly Bicknell, the daughter of the New England icon Edward Rowe Snow. She shared some thank you notes that her father held onto, including one from Scituate Keeper Jamie Turner.  I was even more thrilled when she passed those on for me to scan for the Historical Society.  You see Dolly with Santa in the second to last photo above.

The kids were in awe of the helicopter as much as they were celebrating the visit of Father Christmas.  It was one elegant bird.  Below is a shot I got where you have the technology of today in the foreground and the technology of the past in the back.  There were more dials in there than you would see in a nuclear reactor.  Some kids were able to climb in for a minute or two and have a picture taken.  I doing that next year for sure.

Curiously we ended up with a zillion candy canes once again.  Either Haley has sticky fingers or Santa was even more generous than last year.  Stacked together you would have one very long barber pole.

Check back in a day or so when I get the video edited and see for yourself the rush that this event brought to Cedar Point once again.  Every day here is a gift and this one had many, many bows on it.