Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Staying Sane: Spring

 This last spring, summer, and fall has been a strange one.  Connie and I kept as busy as possible, taking on lots of projects and doing everything we could to escape the viral and political drama unfolding.  In August I found myself aboard Traveler, anchored at Matia Island in the San Juans and decided to pound out some blog entries.  Once home, I let them sit as we were preoccupied with getting the garden straight and watching our democracy fail.  Today I find myself sitting in our little Scamp trailer in the rain at Pacific Beach State Park and decided to pull out that blog work, push a few sentences around and push the PUBLISH button.  Here is the result of that work……..

July 2020:

Cascadia Flag

Everyone on the planet is dealing with this insidious virus in one way or another, some struggle to put food on the table and a roof overhead, others are challenged with being estranged from friends and coworkers or the activities they love.  After returning from our winter travels we, like many others, decided to pull our heads out of the daily bad news cycle and start a garden.  Behind our house is a vacant lot -- been vacant since it was orchard land in the 60s.  Connie bought a Cascadia flag and we stuck it on a pole, marched out back, and planted it in the ground, claiming the spot as our neighborhood guerilla garden.  The whole plot was overgrown with grass and weeds, but underneath that cover we knew there lay rich loamy soil.



Our friend and neighbor Bill to the northwest had gardened there for years, with the permission of the landowner, but he’d given up on that venture, moving his plants to a friend’s house.  The landowner, whose family we bought our house from two years ago, is now deceased. Instead of asking the heirs for permission, we decided to wait and ask for forgiveness instead. Scheming with our neighbors Stella, Zoe, Ray, and Johnny to the east, we cleared the land and put up an enormous deer proof fence. Ray built a beautiful garden gate and some trellises. There is nothing like physical labor and the process of building something to take your mind off the troubles of the world.  We spent a couple of weeks ripping up sod and sifting it through a screen, adding supplements, and creating wandering pathways and beds.

Once full summer was upon us, the tomato crop flourished, the beans were getting canned in their jars, the carrots and beets stuffed the refrigerator, and we found ourselves in a land of unending greens.

With Covid having its way all around the country, we gave up on the chartering idea to take a three week vacation on the boat, heading north.  While away, we had our neighbors collect the tomatoes and watch the greens bolt.


 

As if the garden was not enough, we took on another spring project… a music studio for Connie.  We carved out a space in our small back yard and built a ten by twelve structure with a mono-pitched (or skillion) roof.  The east wall is 14 foot tall, the west wall is 6 foot tall.  Ezrah joined our “herd” for ten days, getting tested for the virus beforehand, and he was a bundle of energy.  By the time he left, we had floor, walls, and roof in place.  Now the shingles, facia, and soffets are done.  The door and five windows arrived from Home Depot so I could place them in the Tyvec holes the first week of September, bringing the studio mostly to weather.  There will be a little loft inside with a napping bed and have wood paneling throughout.  The goal with the music studio is for Connie to have a space for all her instruments to live without her having to stow them after each use.  There should be enough floor space for stretching and body work and a small table for writing and composition. I’ll be posting some pictures of the project here on the blog.

We’ve had very few calls for the sailboat charter business this year and so have had some time to do some deferred maintenance on our dear Traveler.  We finally finished replacing the teak side decks with non-skid and Connie has been going gangbusters on varnishing the remaining teak.  It’s about time our boat got a little attention.  Like with any boat, there is a long list of projects that remain.


  


  


How fortunate it was that we were able to qualify for unemployment these past months, but sadly the $600 extra per week expired.  The SBA grants and loans were helpful as well.   We are fortunate to have savings to live on during this rough time.  I feel for those people who were living paycheck to paycheck. I sure wish we had competent leaders on the federal level with the ability to help everyone out but those we had ( In the summer of 2020) could not seem to do the right thing in this stressful time.  I’ll not get started on that whole mess here as you are probably tired of that drama. One thing I will say is that I’m happy that we live in a progressive state with Governor Jay Inslee steering us a course through the pandemic.

That wraps up our spring/summer projects that kept us sane.  Next up on the blog we pick up the story in early August as we head north by water for a much needed nautical break.


 




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