Cape Cod Holiday Weekend

They're here. Miles and miles of traffic at the bridges last night and today. That situation made much, much worse when the Sagamore Bridge had to be closed for a major car wreck on the bridge itself. But, welcome to the Cape, and please spend as much money as you want.

T had the day off so we did a few things in town. Important things like going to Windfall Market to buy a few supplies to get us through the holiday weekend. While we were there we walked over to West Marine and purchased a nut and bolt that I needed to reconnect the rudder cable to the rudder in her kayak. We lost one the last time we were out. Then, possibly most important, we stopped at Kappy's to restock my Saranac and Long Trail supplies and some rum, if you please.

There was a good bit of traffic, but we are lucky enough to know the back roads very well to get us around the worst of it. When we did happen to be at a normally busy intersection, it seemed that luck was with us and we were able to slip right in and out of traffic with no problems, as well as get some really great parking spots.

On the way home T spotted this painted turtle trying to cross the road. We turned around and I helped it along to the other side of the road (I was once told to move a turtle in the direction it is heading). Unfortunately, we had another one on a more major road a little later on that we were not quite in time for. That really bothers me.

We headed over to T's Mom's house to assist her with a closet door installation. By the time we got home, the day was pretty much done for me before work. Here are a few shots from the day.

One of many day lilies

Spiderwort.

The second batch of barn swallows fledged today. They were still a bit tentative, but certainly ready to get out of the nest. There was hardly enough room left in there for them. I found them perched on a broom and muck fork.


Another (?) pair of swallows has constructed another new nest on a light and I believe there are already eggs in that nest.

Logan and Maggie keeping tabs on the neighbors.

Late Blight Warning

I picked up this news on Garden Rant and thought I'd pass it along here. Garden Rant picked it up from Cornell Horticulture at Cornell University.

The full text can be read here, but it says, in part:

"Home gardeners need to be on the lookout for Late Blight – a very destructive and very infectious disease that’s killing tomato and potato plants in gardens and on commercial farms in the eastern U.S. "

"Late blight is the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s. It has never occurred this early and this widespread in the U.S."

"Late blight is very destructive. Uncontrolled it will kill plants faster than any other disease. And it affects tomato fruit — especially green ones. Considering how early it is in the growing season, how long it will be until tomatoes peak and potatoes are at a size worth harvesting, and how much spraying you may need to do in an attempt to prevent loss to late blight, seriously consider growing more of the other vegetables instead of tomatoes and potatoes this year. Even with fungicide applied every week, there is no guarantee of success, especially if the rainy weather continues."

A definite must read.

Canal Ride And A Surprise

Not long after I posted Rainy Day Lounging, the sky cleared, the sun blazed, and the air warmed to a perfect temperature. T insisted we toss the bikes onto the car and we headed for the Cape side of the Cape Cod Canal. We parked at the canal railroad bridge on the Buzzards Bay end of the canal and biked the entire length, and then some. Fairly short, really. About 7 miles one way. What a gorgeous day it turned out to be, and, save for the occasional puddle, you would never know it had rained.

Bikes and the car at the railroad bridge.

Heading towards the Bourne Bridge. This is a great bike path.

One of several fishing vessels we saw. This is the Terri Ann out of Sandwich, MA.

Our rides at the Cape Cod Bay end of the canal. The paved portion of the path ends at a parking area with rest rooms not far from the power plant in Sandwich. We continued along the roads around the marina and picked up the dirt portion of the path which ends at Cape Cod Bay. Below is the Cape Cod Bay access to the canal.

We stopped at Seafood Sam's along the canal and had a great broiled seafood lunch (which turned out to be plenty and we did not eat supper later).


U.S. Coast Guard Station Cape Cod Canal, Sandwich, MA.

After stuffing ourselves, we headed back. It was a bit breezy going back which gave us good excuse to ride slow and enjoy the views. Now the surprise. Along the way, T spotted these three or four critters coming up from the banks of the canal seemingly headed for the bike path. I instantly recognized them as being in the weasel family, and almost as instantly recognized them as mink! I have only seen mink in The Adirondack Mountains. We dumped the bikes and watched them as they headed back to the rocks along the canal. I tried to get a good shot of them with the camera, but only managed a fuzzy image of one of them straining to watch us from behind a rock (the little brown thing in the middle of the image).
We watched them for a bit, then they disappeared in the rocks. A first for me on Cape.

Bourne Bridge with railroad bridge in the distance.

We had a fantastic afternoon along the canal. Sometimes spontaneity is key.

"Enjoy life!"

Rainy Day Lounging

Logan somewhat relaxed...
...but still keeping watch.

What's a retired racer to do with so much free time?

Blogger and Sprout playing with the self portrait feature on the camera.
Enough sitting around....

Fire and Water

T & I took advantage of a somewhat nice evening last night and had supper in front of the fire. It turned out that the weather was not ideal for this with a slight breeze out of the north/northeast (what else is new) and with the air heavy with moisture the smoke hung over our heads and blew in our faces for much of the evening despite moving our seat a few times.

Despite this, we were still able to enjoy our grilled Vermont Natural Beef filet mignon, mashed potatoes and carrots. Eventually a heavy mist developed into an almost light rain, but we stuck it out for a while before retiring.

I checked the radar last night and found a most interesting loop. There was a big blob of green (rain) coming at us from the west in New York state and another big blob coming at us from the east which was out over the Atlantic. How odd. As one of my fellow bloggers put it, we're smack in the middle of a rain sandwich. I was curious what the result would be when these two masses met. Below is the result. Nothing severe, but it continues to keep us wet.

If this was an animated loop, you would see that the whole mess is pretty much stalled directly over us and northern New England (also where we like to go camping). We've decided to just live with the rain.

After a rather crappy night's sleep - initially had trouble breathing, runny nose and itchy eyes from all the smoke, woke at 2 am when nature called, woke again at 4am when the dog got sick - we decided to just read, and in my case, blog. T made a fantastic frittata for breakfast. I went out and grabbed some digital images in the perennial garden.

The rain series.

Rain on Viburnum.

Rain on a day lily leaf.

Rain on a day lily flower.

Rain on lady's mantle leaf.

The greening of our rock wall. I love this little wall.

Plan for the day was to run five miles, but after a breakfast like we just had, it isn't happening. I believe I will be fighting through the crowds at the grocery store a little later as we're low on essentials.

Wonderful People

What a day! I did something I very rarely do. I got home from work last night (technically this morning) and went right to bed. Most nights I stay up, watch the repeat of a news show I like, and have a little snack. Sometimes I fall asleep on the couch which is annoying.

I woke this morning at about 7:00, fed & let the dogs out, fed the other critters, let Rosie loose, made coffee, washed and hung a load of laundry and decided that it was so beautiful I would go out for a run. We loaded T's bike onto the car and went to the bike path in North Falmouth. I had a great 4.2 mile run, though I am still not happy with my time (I know. I should not be focusing so much on that. I get it!). But, I am closer to getting to where I need to be for the Falmouth Road Race. I think...

After the run, I cooled down by walking back to the car. As we walked through the parking lot, I noticed this older couple with bicycles who were geared up as though they really knew what they were doing, but not obnoxiously so. I took a quick glance at the tires on the woman's bike which looked very similar to if not exactly like T's, and decided to ask her one simple question about them. We've been wondering about T's bicycle tires and if they would work well on a "multi-use trail" which usually means it's dirt or gravel. They believe we should have no problem. We got to chatting and found them to be fascinating people. They have cycled all over the place and spoke very much about cycling all over Europe. They were very young at heart, Henry and Pat. We talked for quite some time and I would very much like to run in to them again someday. Henry's parting words to me were "Enjoy life".

After the ride/run, we stopped at the house to get my bike and took a ride over to Hatchville Pottery to poke around the gallery. We met the potter, Mr Hollis Engley, who was working in his studio. We decided on these mugs and I could not be happier!

The one on the left is my new mug. I really like the shape and feel of it as well as the glaze. It was tagged as a "second" and somewhat tucked away. I wanted to have a new mug since my old (mass-produced) cup developed a severe crack on our last camping trip. This Hatchville Pottery mug will also go with me on camping trips. T decided on the mug in the middle of the image. I then asked Mr. Engley about some pieces that he featured in a blog because I had not seen them in the gallery. They happened to be sitting right behind me in the studio. While we were discussing them, T picked up and admired the green mug shown on the right side of the image. Mr. Engley was gracious enough to give her the mug as a gift which we were not expecting at all. We thanked him and offered to deliver some Frost Bottom eggs to him. We rode home, retrieved the eggs, rode back and delivered them to him. I was so happy to finally meet him and am pleased to have some of his work. We hope to obtain more in the future.

I would have been content to not work this evening. The day was so beautiful and rather hot (as compared to what we're used to this month) with temps in the 80s. But, have to pay the bills and keep the health insurance I guess.

But remember, "enjoy life".