A Different Summer Coming

 Lots of news from the late winter, to the spring and into what will be a different summer. 

I did some work back in January on some worn floors. First step was a restorer; the next a wax. These treads needed some attention and the products have held up very well.

The newer floor in the living room was treated too and that transformed a beat up and kinda dingy wood to something that looks much healthier even today.

In February, the bathroom was painted, moving from yellow to Lighthouse white. That's what the hardware store called the new color. The ceiling needed the most help and that room was as cleaned up as could be by the end of the February school vacation.  I also installed a new faucet. Looks like an old pump. That was a valuable upgrade as well. 

Another upgrade was transforming the brick red baseboards in the kitchen to a putty color that fits better with the floor that replaced the old brick. 

 

From time to time I am offered an upgrade to the web cams and the March upgrades really seemed to sharpen the images.

April was all about the boardwalk. I was told that I could not possibly wrestle those pieces out of the yard and back into place but with some patience and some persistence I got it done. The wind worked against me but I figured out how to use the walk itself as a platform and unroll the carpet. Russ Totman had done a great job getting the path level and after that it was just a matter of thinking it through and lugging the panels onto the wheeler. 

Another project tackled was building a better home for my grill. The spot lies just outside the entry door to the Tower runway. I had had smaller bricks there that had gathered from near and far. I decided a better choice was to use a larger paver and got to work.

The stone that came along with the boardwalk project was repurposed. I got a lot more delivered than I needed to level the walk and some of that was spread into the yard and then to another walk on the ocean side of the house.

Last year there was a good deal of clean up that I could not get to. Julie and my sister Lee stepped up as did several others in the neighborhood. This year I could get my hands dirty and the gardens and curbs got shined up. In early June the annual neighborhood clean up brought in new annuals and new perennials and a dose of mulch. 

The banners went out in April. It continues to be a thrill to see people stopping to read them.  The sewer line was replaced and that led to the digging up of the small courtyard on the ocean side of the house. I am trying to get the grass to grow but a water ban just as the lawn was seeded hurt that cause. The grass is growing but more slowly than it might have had we been able to keep it watered at the start. 

Furniture got moved and the results have worked out so far. A small couch went to the utility room. A bigger couch went to the living room where one of us can be found reading regularly. Two matching chairs went into the former tv watching room. That has become a more polished looking room with the shift. And a tv shifted into this office so that I can keep up with my basketball games while entering grades. Or writing blogs.

I am not on a job this summer for the first time since I was fourteen. One project in the works is too refinish the kitchen table. Another is to build a book giveaway box for the end of the driveway. I have done some wood working already and have hung some wooden buoys on the house that I mill down and paint from scraps of 4 by 4's. There is a chance that there will be more blogging in this time too. Come on back by to see.

  

Winter 2021

 A year ago I was as sick as I ever was over the course of treatment I had. Super Bowl Sunday came with me just released from a week long stay at MGH and still not perking along on all cylinders. I was sick.

Friday and Saturday of this week I got out around the property and cleaned up from a 13 plus foot tide that hit early Tuesday morning. Lots of debris in the road had me serpentining my way down Lighthouse as a bulldozer had Rebecca Road blocked. There was a lot of sand and stone on the ocean side track.

The wind ripped the flag on the Tower to shreds. The flag on the parking lot pole is still up though broken, as I believe the mechanism at the top may have been damaged. It is still too windy to put my ladder up and try to gaff it down. (That has been my trick in the past.)

Some before and after pictures are testimony that I am back. Lots of rocks moved. People can pass without worry. Lots of families and carriages here already today. Snow is coming in a few hours. A different kind of shoveling to come.

Thanksgiving 2020

 Whew.

Hasn't this been a run of days? Months? Whew.

School is back in session and I am back in place in front of students for four of the five days with one set aside for remote learning, planning, and correcting. There is a good deal of anxiety present in the adults I work with but the students are more frustrated and confused than anxious. The routines of the school year are strong tent poles for their lives. The prolonged election brought its own anxieties and confusion. Whew.

Around the Lighthouse things quieter than they were all summer but for an ongoing sewer improvement project. The course of action for the cottage has not been determined yet and there is a chance that there won't be any digging or replacing of the lateral to the sewer main. I am crossing my fingers as providing a new lateral would mean digging up the sidewalk that runs by the north side of the house and the likelihood of it being replaced with one of equal quality is small. 

The whole of this sidewalk up to the Etrusco stone would be torn up if the lateral has to be replaced. The contractor is seeking to avoid that by checking the line with a camera fed in from the main. Cross your fingers that this will find a solid pipe in no need of replacement.

The most unusual event of the last few months was the landing of a hawk in the yard and its capture and vivisection of one of the seemingly million rabbits that have come to nest in the rose bushes and (I think) under the stacked boardwalk. 

Julie got this amazing photograph.

What she did not see and what I will not share was that the hawk had captured a rabbit and is resting on top of it.  The hawk moved to the boardwalk with its prey and proceeded to recreate a scene from a horror movie. We got some pictures of that too but this is a family show.  Cleaning up the mess was a task that fell to yours truly and I don't recall that responsibility on the original agreement when we moved in.

Tomorrow or Saturday will be the day for the wreath to go up on the Tower for the Christmas season. I will put up a finger and judge the wind. The ropes are ready to go and I think I will rerig the bow to last for more than two weeks this year. Come on back here as I will be posting pictures as the process unfolds.

Got Here Earlier

The last of the new cameras arrived early and has been installed. This is the first snapshot taken with it. You can find this camera listed as Both Sides in the list. I was going to call it Watch a Wedding as this is where all that action takes place. We had two yesterday.

This shot will be a good one for storms. You will see the wave action on both sides; hence the name. One broken camera has become three new cameras and I have one that I have out of service that I will find a new home for in time. I have some ideas to work through and we will have another in the mix.

 

New Looks

 You lose some; you win some.

The Harbor 180 camera burned itself out some time ago and I have been trying to replace it since. My first purchase was a very similar camera that I could not get to boot on. Had to return it after a great deal of experimentation with different cables and ports. You lose some.

The win some part of the story began two days ago. It happened to mark the 12 year anniversary of Julie and I being appointed Lightkeepers. I got a camera that is a slight upgrade from most of the cameras we have available here. I worked out a placement at the top of the light. Looking North is the designation. 

The second part of the project began today. I used the cable that used to serve the 180 camera and mounted another slightly better than we have used before camera. This is the new Lighthouse Beach camera you can find at the top of the posts. 

The final part of the project will be to replace the original camera, labeled Around the Horn, with a camera that will be mounted next to the weather station on the kitchen wing. This should cover the big jetty with a lot of detail. That will probably happen two weeks from now.

So one super duper camera has become three upgraded cameras. There is one more port in a router for one more camera but the only angle I haven't covered is right in front of the light. I would need a very sturdy camera to bear the wind and the weather that you find there. I will be looking.

Numbers

The numbers are out of this world.  Early in the morning; late at night; every step along the way; the numbers are astronomical.

What numbers am I talking about you ask?  I am talking about guests to the Light, the beach, and the jetties. In a period when stores, movie theaters, concerts, and ball games are off limits, the Lighthouse is the destination of choice.  It has gotten so popular that each night I pray for rain to slow things down a little. 

I have heard people at 4:45am. I have gone out at 2:30am when I was awakened by two guys and a girl playing music in front of the Tower. I told them to go wake up the rich people in Minot.   I had a whole family having breakfast at 5:30 one morning. The teenagers had no idea I could hear everything they said from my bed. Three women who were older than I am inadvertently shared their latest news from the gynecologist. I didn't know how to get away from it fast enough. You can hear everything anyone says on the rocks while inside the house.

The town attempted to cut down on the numbers by taking a lane of parking out of service with some Jersey barriers. No luck there. The remaining spots are full up all day and all night.  

Roughly 50% percent are masked. I went out twice in the last week to run people off and found groups masked and photographing the planets and the sky in long exposures. Two young women were actually reading the plaques by cell phone light. Another group was singing until I asked them how long they planned to sing so that I would know how long I had to stay up. All are apologetic. I tell them they have nothing to be sorry for and that sorry doesn't help me anyway. I don't need sorry, I need a night's sleep.

One couple a little younger than I am was sitting just in front of the Light with a camera set up to catch the comet of a few weeks back. I explained that I could hear them and saw his eyes wonder what he had said that I had heard. They were very quiet after that.

We get big crowds when there is a big moon. Julie caught it just right the other night. We will have another big mob on Friday for the annual Luminaria. I am getting the milk jugs out of the basement when this is posted.

After a certain time of day, 9am there are very few people here from town. You can hear their questions and their answers and it is pretty easy to figure out they have never been here before. They read the Downton stone, the Army of Two plaque, the banners and the Etrusco signs and hopefully pick up a little to share. Many photograph the banners so that they can get the blog address for the web cams. If you are one of the guests, welcome, and I hope you take a tour through the blog archive for more photographs and musings.  Just go home by 10:00 please. After that I can get a bit testy.

July 2020

After a long lapse the blog is back up and running. It has been 11 months since a post and there is a good deal to review.

The last post indicated that things were quiet here as Haley had gone to Australia for a term and I had a blockage in my ear that wasn't going away.  Both have resolved themselves. Haley is back in DC, working at Starbucks and online with an internship with the Smithsonian. My ear cleared up but it took chemotherapy to do it. The blockage was caused by a good sized mass in the middle of my forehead caused by lymphoma. 6 months of treatment began in January and I am good to go again. There were some side effects that were a drag but overall I was cared for by a remarkable team with remarkable skills.  Being sick takes a bite out of you but that is in the past. I am feeling better and better with each passing day. The hair is coming back.

Around the Light the biggest change caused by the pandemic is the absence of the boardwalk. In order to discourage congregating the boardwalk was left disassembled in the yard. Perhaps we gain another year by taking a year off. The crowds have been as big as ever despite the absence of an easy path by the harbor. The Town attempted to cut down on crowds by blocking off a row of parking spaces in the lot but the numbers have been as high as ever all the same. 

The gardens have flourished. My sister Lee and Julie did back breaking work in the spring to clean up the beds and even introduce two new ones. There were some swings and misses but I think we have plants in places they will thrive now. A member of the Beautification Committee, Mary Tennaro, saw to it that mulch was delivered and she did her share of weeding prior to laying it down in the garden by the flagpole. She also saw to it that flowers once growing in a Town Hall garden were brought down here for us to transplant.  She has long tended to a memorial garden here and brought all that know how into the mix.

We started with these beds in May. Got them cleaned up and let the weather and the water take us on a ride.  As always clicking on an image will bring you a bigger version of it.

 

         

 

These last few photos are of new gardens that were begun when some dying bushes were removed. It freed up room for some more perennials and a few annuals. Next year I will have even more time to work on it. Lee and Julie got it started and we tried hydrangeas as a anchor plant but they were getting too much sun and had to be moved. They are over by the house now and doing much, much better. This is an example of where Mary T's expertise helped us out.

To say I was supported by friends and family throughout being treated is the understatement of the day. Not a day went by without a card or a note.  I was sent a lot of puzzles and got a couple done. My brother shared a picture and a note with my favorite center fielder. 

                                     

It was pretty cool to be in so many thoughts and prayers and I don't know where to begin to express how grateful I am.

In other Lighthouse business I am trying to repair one of the web cams. Turns out it rusted in the wiring and I should have a replacement for the 180 cam inside of two weeks. The others are up and running and when they are not it is usually because power has dropped out and they need to be reset. I get to it within a day as a rule.

I am also working on improving the weather station reporting here. I may need some time to figure that out but there should be a working link for at least wind and temperature in the upper right hand corner.

Julie has a raised garden this year. My sister and brother in law were instrumental in making that happen. 

The banners and signs are back in place and it remains rewarding to see how many stop and read them. It helps tell the story and there is nothing I like more than story telling. We also have a new sign on the house with the street number. We had a few grocery deliveries hung up because the driver couldn't find a street number.

I am on Instagram as well with Lighthouse and family photos. The tag is @bobgallagher44. The blog site has changed which photographs I can make available here and Instagram looked like a good option.

School looms as it did when I wrote last here. No one knows what it will look like. I got a delivery of face shields and masks yesterday and have been preparing to teach remotely along side classroom teaching. A second monitor has been added to the computer array.  Software has been vetted for usefulness and easy student access.  We will try to move them along and bring them to their own perspective on our history and the issues of the day.

I will be more diligent here. One final gift we were given is a new grill from my sister in law. The little one on the left is a new one I bought in the spring and that was assembled by my overworked brother in law. The one on the right is fancy and we took a ride to Rockport to pick it up. 

 As I have gotten better I have found myself watching a lot of cooking shows. Most of the stuff is stuff I would never eat as it is either good for you or very spicy. Some however, is grillable. This corner is a place to try stuff out.