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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.