The January thaw was wonderful, but short-lived. We arrived at Keewaydin in 55 degree weather, the pond ice was melting and there was a mild southerly breeze. Saturday morning we woke up to even less ice on the pond, balmy!
We did some errands and stopped by First Encounter Beach, Nauset Light beach, and Coast Guard Beach.

 The ice is halfway across the pond, the wind blowing away from us.

 First Encounter at a very high and wavy tide.

 Nauset Light Beach. The the stairs and the bath house are totally gone! They must have been removed late in the fall. The fencing is at the edge of the parking lot, and the dark line is a dirt barrier at the top of the cliff.

 Nauset Light beach looking across the parking lot to where the bath house and stairs used to be!

This is Coast Guard Beach. The wind is blowing to the east. Not the usual direction. It was kind of strange. As the day went on, the sun came out, the wind shifted and the temperature dropped.

The ice shimmered at the edge of the ice sheets like diamonds! And the wind shifted to the North, northwest. We spent an hour with Janet who stopped by on Saturday afternoon. It was a nice visit. We walked her home 'around the pond'. That was a short but cold and windy walk.

We also started painting the trim in the kitchen. Can you tell the difference?

On Sunday before we left, we went back to First Encounter to see if we could see any Snowy Owls. No owls, but we found ice floes instead! As the tide was coming in, it brought broken ice toward shore. It was actually moving up into the salt marsh. AND COLD! 26 degrees when we left.

Deep freeze and wind! pictures from Janet

Janet emailed and volunteered to check the house last week after the VERY windy storm on the Cape. She took these pictures. We're going out soon to see how the inside fared. Outside seems fine. The pond looks frozen over! It is in the 40's these next couple days, so I imagine the pond will open up before we get there. 

Kitchen part 2 and WATER

A busy weekend, starting on Wednesday evening. Cosmo and I arrived on a very windy afternoon and woke up to snow flurries. At 7:30 am the workmen arrived to bring town water to the house! And it snowed the whole morning while they worked.

 Can you see the ditch digger behind the spruce trees? They tunneled  (I think they called it 'shooting') the pipe 4 feet underground under the trees and from that hole to the basement wall.

 And then they drilled through the foundation and brought the water in. On Friday, the plumber came and hooked up the water. The well is still there, but un-attached to the pipes in the house. The water is noticeably clearer and tastes oh so much better!

 Cosmo was interested in the little Christmas tree. He had a fun weekend. On Friday night we woke up to the sounds of Cosmo racing around the house and little squeaky noises! No evidence that he caught any mice, but he sure was fixated on the bottom of the stove for the rest of the weekend!

 I managed to make the first batch ever of brot bulla at Keewaydin - as you can see it was good enough to devour.

 And we worked some more on the kitchen walls.  We  removed the wooden shelves (!) - did you know they weren't attached? The wood counter is, though, so we painted around that.

Done. A creamier yellow. Next, we MUST paint the trim a true white because it looks dingier than ever.

And I'll leave you with a picture of the pond edged with ice spray. Merry Christmas!

Kitchen project part I

The flower wallpaper is GONE! Underneath, a yellowy tan dingy color. We did get to paint it, I forgot to take pictures! It is now a creamy color. But - we're not done: we want to paint the trim a bright shiny white and add white curtains. And we hope to paint the rest of the kitchen the same cream color. It is a lighter version of the tiles and with the white trim, should look better than the current bright yellow walls in the kitchen area.

Roses in October

Along the fence!

Bob and I met with a plumber on Friday the 13th. Good luck for us I think. He'll send us a quote for the inside water hook up. This won't be an inexpensive proposition, but we're leaning towards doing it. The standing water in the toilet is stained with the iron in the well water again. And the water has that metallic taste that some of us do NOT like. We're thinking of having him replace/fix the kitchen faucet and leak underneath, the basement washing machine water source while he's here, and give us a quote on flushing and replacing the antifreeze in the furnace.

Bob and I accomplished a lot of other things this long weekend. 

• Bob put 'stove black' on the wood stove - a messy but very rewarding endeavor. The stove looks great. Remember, we can't use it until we fix the chimney and then when we do use it, it may smoke a bit from the polish.
• We also painted the ceilings in the little 'hallway' and loft stairwell. And cleaned that hall light. We think it all cleaned up nicely. Will anyone else notice?
• Bob finally took down the broken smoke detector. Did you know that the switch in the ceiling there turns it on?!? And the old detector just continually buzzed. So we'll see if we can find a new one to install for next time.
• I mowed the whole yard while 
• Bob painted the new gutter with the latest version of the green trim paint. 
• We cleaned out the main part of the barn/boathouse (sweeping the cobwebs on floor and walls!). We brought Paul's little boat down. It fits nicely along the side. 
• And there's much more room in the basement now! The deck furniture is all stacked to one side of the basement. Please use as you like! But return it to the basement, especially in the winter months.
• We took a load (in the Prius, no less) of metal - fence posts, bars, etc from the garage to the dump. We're slowly cleaning that up.
• And we even made time to read our library books, do a crossword puzzle or two, and work on a knitting Christmas project.

Fall? and hurricane Jose

The remnants of Hurricane Jose were still blowing onto the Cape this weekend. Notice that the waves are coming from the Northeast: a fall 'nor'easter' they are calling it. Most of the weekend we couldn't see across the pond to the other side. It was weird to have so much fog and so much wind! I guess we were really in the clouds most of the weekend.

Here are pictures of Bob and Dave and Kris at Coast Guard Beach. It was very windy and wet, not from active rain, but from being in the clouds and wind. And not very cold at all. Even the water...Notice how white the water is from the breaking of waves. The waves were big and constant. we could see the erosion behind us on the sand dunes. The stairs at Nauset Light Beach were still there, but the sand dune had eroded very close to them, I'm not sure they'll make it through the winter if there are any winter storms.

And the following pictures are on Sunday before we left. It's low tide at Coast Guard Beach, but you can see that the waves are much calmer, the sky is blue and the wind has died down. 

It was a fascinating weekend, weather wise.  

We also met with 2 contractors to find out what it would take to bring town water to the house. We've since received a quote from one - VERY EXPENSIVE - and that's not even hooking up the water inside - that takes another plumber and a separate contract. We will have to re-think this I think...

The Kimballs and we ate lunch at Arnold's (still crowds there on a Saturday afternoon), after we walked around Fort Hill trails and the Coast Guard Beach. During the storm, I checked out some of the (MANY) pictures in those boxes upstairs. Found a lot of the 'kids' when they were little.

We also went through ALL the games - closet, box, and upstairs - and I will donate the duplicates to some charity. Any suggestions?

We moved sand away from the basement wall and took up some of the pavers on Friday morning in the mist and wind. Hopefully that will keep the water from coming into the basement. There was none when we got there, but after the hard rain Thursday night, some had come in by morning. (none down the chimney this time) Bob spent most of Saturday cleaning up the basement closets: going through all the nails, screws, plumbing stuff, electrical stuff, etc etc. Didn't throw much out, I think, just organized it so he can find it 'next time'.

A busy summer! After we left in mid August, Anna stayed and her friend Diane came for the week. Much clarinet playing, giggling, studying and making silly birthday videos for Jen's 30th ensued. Then Ethan joined them, Diane left, Ethan and Anna finished painting the twin bed room. (It looks amazing!) Ethan's family came in a torrential rain storm. Here's a picture of the driveway. A real 'gully washer'! It rained so hard that the rain came down the chimney and dripped out of the stove pipe onto the wood stove, and also came into the pond side of the basement. Wow!

 

The Foxes had a wonderful time by all accounts: Anna et al steamed clams and lobsters. They went to the beaches, went to Ben and Jerry's and played a lot of games. It sounds like a good visit. 

Then Alex Sandin came with a couple of his friends for a couple days. Alex left a great note as usual. 

Daniel, Julie, Nate, and Kate stayed a couple nights between various weddings in Boston and Brewster.

I decided to go out to check on the house the weekend after Labor Day (did it survive all the various combinations of visitors?) All looked fine of course. I also wanted to take pictures of the driveway because the gutter-man wouldn't/couldn't get up the driveway because of the low branches. I wanted to see if it was something Bob and I could remedy. In the process of inspecting, I met Kyle Kearin our neighbor's son. He has grown up! He gave permission for us to trim the offending branches. When I left, I took this picture at Boat Meadow beach, just off of Bridge Road. LOW TIDE!

Finally, Bob and I drove out Friday for a short 2 days to trim the trees on the driveway. When we got up on Saturday morning, it was so foggy we couldn't see across the pond. We walked to the corner store for donuts and coffee and here's Samoset Rd near the library and then Great Pond from the deck later that morning.

 By afternoon, the fog had lifted. We spent the morning trimming, cutting, cleaning up the driveway. Can you see the difference? The road is slightly better, and we raked some of the gravel back into it to level it a bit. Kyle said he wanted to fix it, but I'm not sure when/if that will happen. We did see Bob Kearin driving out and then in, he's looking older, too. Still so nice. As we were working, Art Hall (other side of the yard) came out to say hello. He had been in Florida the past week cleaning up his house/yard from Hurricane Irma. Luckily, they didn't have major damage, but had no power for the week. He was back in Eastham to close up their little house for the winter.

Bob and I also spent some time installing a dish soap dispenser (on the left side of the kitchen sink) and putting a sun-blocking film on the front storm door. We brought in the docks and enjoyed the quiet pond from the deck. All in all a nice (if short) trip out. On our way home Saturday evening, we stopped at the Kimballs in Harwich for a light supper of chips and salsa and warm chicken dip. Great to see them!