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Summer Arrives in CT

Don’t knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while.
Kin Hubbard, American Journalist

Pre-storm at D.R Marina

Weather watching approaching storm

That being said, I’m not going to knock the weather except to say that Spring & Summer 2010 was far more pleasant and dry than this year. Every non-wet day is a glorious joy and we are thankful for all 2 of them so far!  Kidding, yes, but I am loath to say that dry and warm days are winning out over wet and dreary.
Mother Nature has provided well for us; we are kept entertained by not only the occasional thunderstorm, but by the swans, ducks, jumping fish and regular, though greatly diminished, river flotsam. Not sure what’s up with the ducks, during the day they are quiet and we seldom see them, but come night-time- yikes watch out. They are quirky and quacky. The darkness morphs them into entirely different creatures, ones who don’t play nice and seem to revel in protecting their territory. We get a kick out of their odd antics.
The other morning our breakfast was interrupted by a resident fish working on capturing his breakfast.  A thrashing, bumping sound emanated from between the hulls. Our best efforts to peer underneath and see the action resulted in a view of agitated water and bubbles.  Now we have bruised fish hanging around.
One beautiful morning we watched a mini air show; first was this very cool ultra-lite seaplane that cruised overhead down the river, then a short time later a gyro-copter drew our attention. The copter was too far for a good shot with my camera- too bad though; we’d never seen one before.

Ultra light sea plane

..the plane, the plane

A question we are often asked, understandably, is; “How is it with 3 on the boat?”  I’ll steal this out of our upcoming FAQ post to address it now- it’s timely.  The key is everyone is working. This gives us enough together time but not so much that we get on each other’s nerves. Remember we have two hulls- one bunk in each, a dinette that seats four and well, you get the idea.  The pure joy we all felt after not seeing one another since mid-January has only slightly diminished 45 days later. We always have plenty to talk about.  Helps that our son applauds our decision and is proud to call us pirates livin’ the dream. We are one lucky family.
Father’s Day- not only did the weather cooperate beautifully, but we managed to fit in a bit of everything.  Began the day with coconut French toast and homemade butter- made fresh from the raw milk Benj buys at the farm where he works.

Benj makes butter

Fresh butter made from raw milk- yum!

Was so easy- skim off the cream, shake for – maybe five mins- pour off the buttermilk (so THAT’s where it comes from), and voila! Soft yummy butter. Add salt while shaking if you want. Lunch out, lobster, kayaking and a continuation of the lengthy boat wash and wax process filled out the day. The topper however, was the surprise card Benj made for Russ; the kind that is from the heart, let’s you know “you’ve done good” and are appreciated.
How often do we never express the love in our hearts to those we care about most? Here’s to you Dad; I hope you would have been proud of me, maybe you wouldn’t have understood, but I know you would still love me as much as ever.

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Life at the Dock

benj lily russ

Relaxing and Rummy Tiles

As our first month “home” draws to a close I have to say that the transition was easy and we settled right into the luxuries of car, constant electric and water. My Mini Cooper, ESC.POD exited storage in great shape. We lost no time in making the rounds: groceries, Defender, storage unit, laundry, mail and Pasta Vita for mouth-watering heat and serve entrees like Artichoke ‘n Chicken Lasagna. We met a fellow sailor who came over from the next dock to say he’d been following our blog; we almost got chided for not updating that we’d arrived, but I’d gotten it done just in time. Phew, you never know who is keeping tabs. John- hope you get your new mast soon…
The weather hasn’t improved greatly; if the rain and overcast skies would depart for more than 24 hrs, we might start to dry out and warm up!  We even bought a small refurbished flat screen TV with DVD player to take advantage of the marina’s free cable service. Benj was dismayed, but cut us some slack when he learned it was refurbished.  A question I am often asked is “Do you have a TV”?  Does that query say something about people’s priorities or what? Ok, so now we have one and I think we’ve turned it on 5 times.
Our dock lines and engines still function; we’ve left the dock 3 times now. Twice for a pump out two docks up and last Sunday a spur of the moment jaunt on CT River through Essex then Hamburg Cove for lunch, and back.  Benj’s girlfriend Lily was visiting and when the movie plans got moved back to dinner time, the request to “take the boat out” was met with “well, why not”?  Ever ready cruisers we are, off we went with no rain in sight- amazing. And, we played rummy tiles.

I’ll omit the boat projects, suffice to say that we completed the worst one first and have been plugging away at the rest. Dinghy chaps are done- finally. Noticed a tear in a jib seam; 10 month old sails – just great. Russ is in his second week of working for Rick who bought the lock biz. The worker bee grass is no greener than the owner’s grass, but when the work day is done, it’s done.
Took care of the various doctor and hair appts. Nothing like bad news at every appt to make one feel old. That could be eliminated with the arrival of summer and some SUNSHINE!!
Benj has been job hunting without much success and we’ve spent lots of quality time together; much of it shopping for raw milk, local eggs and other healthy foods at local markets. What he doesn’t spend on clothes, is made up for in the food category. Could be worse. Like the cost of laundry- what a shocker. Yes the machines are larger, but so is the price tag. Our twist on “college kid brings home dirty laundry” was “cost conscious cruisers bring laundry to college with free washers and dryers.” No joking. We also got a free chicken (ready to cook) and bought raw milk and eggs from the farm at Green Mt College.  The milk had a grass-like taste and if you wanted to you could take the cream from the top and make butter, otherwise just gently shake and drink. The yolks of the free-range eggs were a deep orange and we all swore we could taste the difference. The chicken- well, let’s just say we’d been warned it would be tougher than Mr. Perdue’s. It was a laying hen whose time had come to be a stew bird; a very tough old bird for sure.
We eagerly await June and perhaps an end to weeks of rainy, overcast, chilly and gloomy weather.