We DID get the snow!

Today we woke up to about a foot of snow. This is the storm with the center of rotation just south of Cape Cod. You can see one of the big snow bands, in the darker blue, right over our house. Photos coming.

Finally... Some Snow!

At 10:38 pm, I saw a few flakes in the front outside lights. The next time I looked, at 11:10, it was a white-out and the ground was covered. So... here's our blizzard: The Blizzard of Ot-Nine.

Here it Comes!

Winter on Cape Cod is nothing to feel bad about missing altogether. For the better part of 6 months its just cold damp and monotonous. The weather can never seem to commit to either sleet or rain - rarely snow. But, every so often, the weather service sends a little ray of winter sunshine in the form of a "Winter Storm Warning." Here's the latest; and because of where we're situated; 30 miles out in the relatively warm Atlantic, we sometimes find ourselves in the birthplace of these storms or "Nor-Eastah's" Here's the report I'm watching (doesn't it sound GREAT!)...

A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 1 PM EST SUNDAY.

A CLASSIC WINTERTIME NOREASTER WILL CONTINUE TO DEVELOP OFF THE MID ATLANTIC COAST TODAY. IT WILL MOVE NORTHEAST TONIGHT AND LIKELY BE SITUATED JUST SOUTHEAST OF NANTUCKET EARLY SUNDAY MORNING. SNOW WILL SPREAD NORTHWARD IN ADVANCE OF THIS LOW AND WILL REACH THE WARNING AREA BY THIS EVENING. THE SNOW WILL BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES OVERNIGHT AND CONTINUE SUNDAY MORNING. THE LOW WILL PULL AWAY DURING THE DAY SUNDAY WHICH WILL ALLOW THE SNOW TO TAPER OFF AND END SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

AS THE LOW APPROACHES TONIGHT... NORTHEAST TO NORTH WINDS WILL BECOME QUITE STRONG. SUSTAINED SPEEDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH ARE EXPECTED TONIGHT AND SUNDAY WITH GUSTS POSSIBLY REACHING 60 MPH. THIS COMBINED WITH HEAVY SNOW WILL CAUSE BLINDING SNOW AT TIMES... WITH VISIBILITIES BEING REDUCED TO UNDER A QUARTER MILE. SIGNIFICANT BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF THE SNOW IS ALSO EXPECTED. THE SNOW MAY MIX WITH RAIN OR SLEET FOR A TIME ON NANTUCKET AND THE OUTER CAPE TONIGHT. STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ARE EXPECTED TO BE 7 TO 15 INCHES. LOWER SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE ON THE OUTER CAPE AND ISLANDS IF MORE RAIN MIXES IN LONGER THAN EXPECTED.

TRAVEL IS NOT RECOMMENDED TONIGHT AND SUNDAY AS IT WILL BECOME DIFFICULT AT BEST... AND NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE AT TIMES.

Winter's Here

This early morning, still dark, but light enough to make out remembered shapes, I thought I could make out the cold blue patterns of what could be snow. Not a covering snow, but what I imagined I saw was a wind-swept confectioners-sugar dusting, so sparse and fine it could never hope to make a defining hold in a breeze. It could though, settle in pavement-cracks and between driveway-pebbles. It could cling to the outlines of roof shingles and in the crags of tree-bark. And in these places, I strained to certify the shapes and patterns as snow. And, that it was... with the first pink half-hearted hues of morning pink, I could just make out for sure, our first snow of the season. Our first insignificant snowfall, if you could even call it that. Still it was snow, and if its going to be bitter cold, let it snow!

I planned to get a picture of it on my way to work, but as I left our street and headed onto 6A, I never saw it again. It must have been one of those very local, very fleeting, bursts of precipitation, and just for us... or maybe us and East of us. Now its just cold. Very cold. 20 degrees and blowing 30 kts.

Some are Getting Snow... Lots O' Rain For Us

We had a big storm form off the coast over the weekend. It's mostly passed now, but there are still some pretty big winds. Friday was basically a washout and today was so windy and cold you wouldn't want to be outside anyway. Take a look at this maelstrom in the Benny's parking lot taken this past Friday, Nov. 27. - Dennis, Massachusetts. Cape Cod

Oystering Day 2

The weather this Sunday was much better than last... by far. The wind that had been blowing all day, finally calmed aound 1:00. And, although the clouds never went away, the water was clear, calm and not-so-cold. The oysters were easy picking, which allowed me to be choosy... only taking the perfect ones: rounded bottom, 3 1/2 inches or so. The previous week was so bad, I took whatever I found that was at or above the 3" limit.




This is my new gear this season: An actual clamming bucket, rather than a 3-gallon paint bucket. I just put the orange water-noodle on it this week. With a leash, the bucket now floats at arms reach from me. I also have a deeper plastic tub (to keep the waves out), a 3-foot "grabber," and the sleeves from my old surfing wetsuit.

This is a full 5-quart catch, or about 4-dozen 3 1/2-inch oysters. I didn't see many people leaving today without their limit.

Brewster Oysters - Tough Day

Every season, in October, if you hold a Brewster shellfishing license, you are welcome to brave the elements for your share of the town stocks of oysters. Last Sunday was opening day, but since we had a Nor-Eastah' that lasted for nearly four days, the harvest was cancelled.

So THIS week became opening Sunday. I arrived with the masses at about 1 1/2 hours before the low tide and joined the rest of the oyster-addicts out there in this week's slightly-less-than-a-Nor-Eastah'. The wind was blowing 20mph from the North West, and it completely churned up the water into a dense brown soup. You couldn't see a thing. The only way to find 'em was to take off your gloves and just blindly feel for them on the bottom. I felt lucky to get my limit.

If next week is decent weather, there should be a bunch, since there were a lot of people leaving the beach with only some or NONE in their baskets. (look at the frustrated look on the guy standing to the left)

(click images for a larger view)

Wow... Guggenheim Grotto Acoustic... Just Wow.

I went to see the Guggenheim Grotto in Cambridge last night. What a show. It was well worth the long drive up to Boston as well as dealing with the bridge-repair traffic.

They played to a packed house, but it was a very small, very intimate venue. I was at a table, second out from the stage and it was really a treat. Two hightlights for now before I get back to work... 1) In the song, "Cold Truth," Kevin plays the lead guitar. I never realized this until I watched Mick pass the Guitar to Kevin, that Kevin plays left handed and holds the guitar upside-down. And 2), for their encore, they did a three-song set that included at the very end, a completely un-mic-ed "What is this Feeling." It sounded something like this one from another show... [watch video]

(The photo is a still from a youtube vid at the same venue back in June)

Turtles!

Today, at the kids' soccer games, one of the girls came up to me and said, "Wanna see our turtles?" She had one of those padded cooler bags and I thought "odd," but OK, "Sure!" I said. "Let's see the turtles."

She set the bag down and opened it up. Along with a pile of orange wedges and a few bottles of water were tiny, half-dollar sized little turtles. There must have been around a half dozen and one of the girls picked one up. "They're snapping turtles!" she excaimed with glee. "They were all over the field. We kept these ones... We're going to put them in our pond," she said.

"Yikes!" My mind instantly flashed back to the Mill Pond and all the white-whale adventures we had floating around on that murky pool. I don't remember our monsters there as cute as these little hatchlings. (The movie, "Gremlins" comes to mind) Soccer saved the day for these guys, and surely an opportunistic gull missed out on a quick and easy breakfast.

And, it wasn't only snapping turtles that caught a break today. When I was buying Milk at Cumberland Farms today (only because they charge an average dollar less than the grocery store charges), a Chatham nartural resources officer pulled up, and he had an endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle in the car. They wash up on the beach this time of year, and usually in bad weather. They are cold stunned and lost on their migration back to the south.

No Oystering tomorrow. The town postponed the harvest until next week due to the extreme weather. (Noreaster blowing since Thursday)

Cranberries on Cape Cod

After being shaken off of their bushes, these cranberries are floated in the flooded bog and harvested. This is from a bog in Harwich two days before harvest. (Click photo for bigger photo)

Oyster Season!

It's October on Cape Cod and that means Oysters!

These are from "Brewster Oysters" grant, here on Cape Cod Bay, and they are about as good as you can get 'em.
(Click Image for a bigger view)

Peach Harvest

When we moved into our house a few years ago, we found out we had a peach tree. The first year, we got a few hundred rotten worm ridden tiny fruits. That year I pruned it and the following season we got none. The next year, we got a few, but they were still very worm eaten. Then the next year, I used an oil on them to keep the bugs off them. We got a bunch, but they were all small, and still pretty buggy. A golf-ball-sized one with only one worm was a good one! The next year we had a baby and I didn't have time to deal with them. This year I fertilized and oiled and we started out with hundreds of tiny peaches on the tree. By late summer though, most had rotted on the tree and fallen off. I'm guessing the early cold and rain caused the rot. We did get a few that made it though and they had some good size. Still, even though I oiled, I got the bugs in most, but I did get about 5 or 6 nice billiard-ball sized fruits, and they tasted very good. NEXT year, I will try thinning out the middle of the tree, fertilizing twice during the growing season, culling a lot of the fruit early and spraying the tree more often. (I use a non-chemical insecticide oil.)

What a Difference a Day (and a half) Makes!

Max and I went to the Sox vs. Rays game on Friday night to watch Lester load the bases in the pouring rain before the game was put on delay. Two and a half hours and a few hot dogs later, they called the game. Our tickets would be good for the day game on Sunday... which turned out to be PERFECT weather for baseball (even a bit on the hot side). Sox won 3-1 in fine fashion.

(click images to see them larger)



Buchholz piched a gem. Kotsay, gathering up an overthrow to first, threw out the go-ahead run at the plate, and Oki came in to hold 'em in the eighth. In the bottom of the eighth, Poppi pinch-hit for Bay and blasted a double into right field. He was in turn, pinch-run by Joey Gathright. Elsbury bunted him to 3rd (and almost beat the throw to first himself). Then, Pedroia tried to sac-fly Gathright home and ended up hitting himself a 2-run homer. Papelbon came on in the 9th to close it out and the Sox had 2 out of 3 from the Rays. Later they would win the 2nd game of the Double header to complete the sweep.

Great Whites off Chatham

There are seven different confirmed Great White sharks off the Atlantic side Cape Cod Beaches. This is pretty cool, having some visiting top predators to our area, especially since they can't get out of the water to come eat us.

We went looking for them today, but didn't see any. We did see their buffet table though - a few hundred seals, blobbing about in the water of Chatham. We watched the seals for a good part of the afternoon, but the sharks never showed. Later that afternoon, Chanel 5 News nabbed Amy and the kids for a few quick questions... Amy made the news! Check out the spot here: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/20764973/index.html

Aliens Hatching!!

It's been 10 days since this guy went into his cocoon,
now it looks like it's about ready to come out...


(Monarch Caterpillar Cocoon about to Hatch. Click for a larger view)

Nature Aliens

On Monday we found this guy on a milk weed plant.
We took him home, along with his leaf, found him
some MORE milkweed and let him eat...


(August 19 photo)

He ate all day Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday,
he hung upside down, and on Thursday around noon,
when no one was watching he turned into this...

(August 21 photo)

(click photos to see bigger images)

Coming Soon to Cape Cod...

Hurricane Bill
Cat 4 today

We'll at least be getting some waves and very likely a tropical blow.

It's Football Season!

Me?

Canon Digital Rebel Error 99

I have a Canon Digital Rebel which is attached to my hip... or cheek or at least within reach at all times. Recently, I've been getting this pesky Error 99 code or Err99. This error occurs right when I depress the shutter button and I lose the photo that I had just composed. I found that shutting the camera off, then back on again cleared the error, and if I was lucky, and the shot still remained, I could have another chance. On many occasion, I lost the shot.

At first, it only would occur occasionally, but recently, the Err99 had been getting more and more frequent. It got to the point, this past Sunday, that even after clearing 6 or 7 times, I could still not get the camera fire.

I had almost given in to the fact that I would have to send it back to Canon, and lose at a minimum 2 weeks, but more likely 2 months, of prime shooting time here on Cape Cod. Luckily, (and hopefully) this little fix I found online has done the trick. So far so good... I'm crossing my fingers.

There seem to be many probable solutions, but the one that I used was the first one recommended. Take a look at Richard's Blog for all the info.

Thanks Richard!
Click here for Canon Err99 Error Code Solutions

The Weekend of the Summer

We packed a lot in this weekend...

SATURDAY
Blueberry Picking
Beachin' it at Robin's Hill Beach
Found some tree frogs
Made some delicious local pan-seared sesame tuna (new recipe)
Good Beer (Dogfish 90-minute of course)
Red Sox Win!

SUNDAY
Beach Day - It's all about the sandwich.
High Tide, Sea Dragon, Playing on the air-sand sandbar, the baby napped
Quahoggin' - only 4, but that's enough
The Mimosa is in full Bloom
More Dogfish 90-minute
Red Sox SWEEP!

And the Results...

So we did get up early and it turned out to be quite fruitful! We had a long walk because of the low tide, but once out there, we got into some hungry fish. Mostly, they were pounding crabs on the bottom, but some were outgoing enough to bite our offerings. Max used a white Slug-go and landed a nice 27 incher... one inch shy of a keeper. My biggest was 26" - taken with my fly rod on an olive green sand eel pattern.

It was tough leaving all those fish to go into work, but I had commitments. We fished on the way back, in what turned out to be a VERY fishy tidal river. The fish were all coming in with the tide and they were everywhere. Maybe I'll try tomorrow too... who needs sleep?!

Fishing?

All looks good for a fishing trip tomorrow except for one thing... I don't like an East wind. At sunrise the wind will change from souwest to noreast... that is if you want to call it wind. The report calls for 4-6 mph. I've got a dozen quahogs in the pot, Red Sox on as I tie up the rods. Hoping for good weather holding... Maybe I'll even get back in time to go to work... hmm.

Rockport Scenerey

Photos from 4th of July Weekend (only 2 weeks later)
Click the arrow in the center to start the show, then to see a full-screen slideshow, click the little icon at the bottom right of the viewer with the little "corner-arrows" or click here. Click your "esc" key to get back to the blog.
(Facebook - click here for slideshow)

Pesto Pains

I have a batch of Basil ready to turn into pesto. Amy went to the store today and brought home Romano cheese instead of Parmesan ($4.40/ 8 oz.) Apparently the Romano was half the price of the Parmesan which was $9.00 for 8 OZ of crappy Shaw's Market store-brand cheese!

C'mon Shaw's, stop gouging us. What the HELL!

Will Walked

Will walked today... Out of nowhere... the kid starts walking. He'd been taking a couple steps here and there over the last week or so, but today something clicked. He just goes... all of a sudden.

He's very proud. We're proud. He walked right across the room, then turned and walked the other way.

Whoopie Pies

I go to this one gas station every so often for cheap gas, and as I stood there this one particular time, this one particular early morning, numbly filling my tank, I suddenly had an unexplainable desire to indulge in a whoopie pie. Odd, I thought at this hour, that I should crave a whoopie pie.... but then it clicked as the little mini-mart's marketing ploy revealed itself to my senses... (see the list in the photo - click to enlarge)

"Gotta move those whoopie pies - put 'em on the thank list."

Martha's Vineyard Ferry Ride

It has rained almost every day this month of June. With a little luck, though, Amy and I picked the two dry days in the month to go to Martha's Vineyard. The wee hours of Sunday Morning (a couple weeks ago) started out in foggy drizzle, but as our ferry, "Martha's Vineyard" pulled out of Woods Hole, the fog was well on it's way to being completely burned off. By the time we arrived in Vineyard Haven, it was clear and sunny, remaining that way through Monday night. (We were off on a quick mid-week, early-summer cheap-hotel last-blast before the busy summer season) Here are the pics from the ride over. More up later.

Click the arrow in the center to start the show. To see a full-screen view, click the little icon at the bottom right of the viewer with the little "corner-arrows". Click your "esc" key to get back to the blog.

Testing the slideshow Thingy from flickr (Rockport Photos)

OK... not bad, flickr... this is kinda cool. Click the arrow in the center to start the show. To see it as a full-screen slideshow, click the little "4-arrows-out" icon on the bottom right of the module.
Click esc to get back to the blog
(It's windy as all hell out... welcome summer)

A Cape Cod Box Turtle!

Look what Will and I found on our walk along the power lines. Thanks Keith and Evangelina for the off-road baby jogger. We can go anywhere with that thing!

This is an Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) . This one is a female I'm guessing because she has brown eyes. Apparently, the females have brown eyes and the males have red ones. I wondered if she was making a nest. I know the snapping turtles are at it this time of year, but I didn't see any disturbed dirt around her.

Will loved it, but she closed herself up pretty quickly and never poked her head out again after I handed her over to Will. Good idea. He eats everything.

Are we there yet, are we there yet...

The other night Amy and I were driving home from some event somewhere off-cape... (there's at least one commitment every weekend, somewhere, and it will be that way through December). So yeah, the first 3 weeks of summer have flown by (since the eels), it's 1 am and I've got a couple minutes to myself... Anyway, that's not where I was going with this...

So we're driving home and I noticed a new sign on the side of the road on Route 6 on Cape Cod. It was a mile sign. I'm not talking about one of those little 2 x 6 single-digit green rectangles on a post, put there, i'm sure, to occupy your mind on long drives through such mundane landscapes as kansas or nebaska. This thing was a HUGE sign. I'd say it had to be 14 x 18 inches or so. It was a big green sign with typical white letters: "Mile 66."

"Odd" I thought. They need such a big sign for a mile marker. But, that wasn't the oddest part. It wasn't that they had the need to make every mile sign bigger and extremely conspicuous, but about 5 seconds along I saw another one... "Mile 66.1" ... Now THAT was ODD! Sure enough, there was one every TENTH OF A MILE the same size, marking every 10th of a mile that you'd passed since the last. Now I ask wha.. WHA... What FOR??! The only thing Amy and I could come up with was it was some kind of government work project to stimulate our dead economy... but really... REALLY! Do we really need a reminder that we're not where we want to be EVERY SIX SECONDS??? And what a waste. (photo is the next day going the other way, so multiply the waste by 2)

Any other ideas what this is for?

Elvers!

Pete and I found this little guy and 3 others just like it, making its way up the tidal rivulets on Rockport's Front Beach. This is an elver, or glass eel. It's actually a baby eel on the final leg of its transformational journey as an imature "american eel." It has swum (or drifted) for the past year or so, all the way from the Sargasso Sea (north-east of Cuba) where it was born; changing from a tiny, clear leaf-like creature in it's larval stage along the way, and ending up as this elver on Front Beach. (click photos for full size view)

If this guy is lucky, he and his 3 buds will make it all the way up to a little freshwater pond that I grew up on, called "The Mill Pond." He will live his adult life there, growing to about 2 feet long and be about a half inch to 1 inch in diameter. I'm actually guessing on that growth, solely based on the size of the biggest, slimiest, squirming eel that I had ever caught in that pond as a kid back in the 70s and 80s.

Eventually, if it survives the poisons in the run-off and all the kids like me, with all thier deceptive worm-covered hooks, it will eventually get the call to return to salt water and somehow, it will know how to get back to the Sargasso Sea, mate, and probably die there. (apparently scientists still do not know EXACTLY where the actual mating is going on... they're very secretive about it...)

I'm so glad to see they still come up to Rockport. (PHOTO: Peter looks for more elvers in this little rivulet on Front Beach.)

A Great Game - A Great Time

This had to be one of my best Fenway trips to date. Highlights as follows:

• Big 6th inning rally to take the lead and keep it to the end.
• Not a big enough lead to keep our star closer off the mound (Tampa has earned the right to see Pap, even with a 4-run lead)
• A full moon rose over right field grandstand
• It was 79 degrees at game time... yeah... 79 and the forecast had originally called for rain and wind.
• Great bird's-eye-view seats high above 3rd base in the State Street Pavillion (Front Row)
• Jason Bay crushed a 3-run homer into the Monster Seats
• They were serving Guiness and Sam Adams on Draft...
• I survived a super-dog

Goin' to the Show!

Keith scored us tix to Fenway! Against Tamba Bay Even! We'll be watching in style in the Pavillion Box Seats above 3rd base. Check out the view. Thanks Keith - can't wait.

I'm Home... and So Are the Herring

I'm finally back home, back online, and back together after being away for 10 days. Well, we were really only away for seven days, but I didn't touch my computer for 10. Anyway, as always, it seems it takes me about another week after getting home from vacation to get back on track again, and I've been really tired these last few days - passing out mid-story during bet-putting time for the kids. It's now 9:30, the Sox are on (but losing) and I figure I have a couple hours in me before I pass out. I've downloaded several HUNDRED photos from my camera over the past couple days that I need to go through, cull and post up on flickr. They go all the way back to April 1...ugh...




Not only did we return, but also, our "Stony Brook" herring have returned in force. There were mobs of them in the stream this weekend, and I stopped on the way to work on Tuesday to get these photos.

(and ps... the Red Sox just tied the game!)

Pilgrimage to Dogfish Ale House in DC

Dogfish beer is one of my favorite "homebrews." Here I am tasting one of their weekly special drafts at thier arlington brew pub, "Dogfish Ale House"... The brew is called "Immort Ale" More later...

A Band For Chase - The Heartless Bastards

OK so the Guggenheim Grotto isn't touring out west but this rockin' chick is. I've been hoping they'd come around here, but once again they're not... and now they're on tour again. The lead girl-singer really belts it out... Good good stuff. Chase Go see them for me on the 24thand beg her to come to the Beachcomber on Cape Cod...

4/24/09 DENVER, CO - Gothic Theatre

The Guggenheim Grotto

These guys are really good. I love this song... and such a creative video.

I Cleaned the Sensor on my Canon Digital Rebel Camera

Wow... it's been a while. I actually started this post back on April 7. Things have gotten a little crazy since then. In the midst of all the commotion, Sophie turned 6, Will met the Easter Bunny, I donated a small piece of my back for surgical education, and our neighborhood has become the home to a rather tame Turkey (gobble gobble). All noteworthy, but honestly....I feel like YESTERDAY was April 7. It's now a week and a day later.

Back on April 7, I took the plunge with my digital SLR and decided to try and clean the sensor myself. After reading several articles on the best ways how to (and how not to) do it," I figured I might as well give it a try since, with the rate I switch out lenses, and with the amount of dust I seem to collect on the sensor, I couldn't afford to keep taking it in to be cleaned at $50 a pop. And, even though every article and post I read warned "...don't blame us if you destroy your camera doing this..." many of them also said, "there's nothing to it..." so I figured it's worth the risk. To make a long boring story short and ultimately sweet, the cleaning went fine, but I found I had to do it 3 times, each time holding my heart in my throat as I dragged my modified pec-pad-coverd spatula across the sensor, a little harder each time... until finally... no dust.

There is a great article on the whole process here [Cleaning the CMOS Sensor on your Digital Camera]. If you decide to proceed, read this article carefully, and read all the comments. There are some really good tips. My camera is a Canon EOS Digital Rebel (350D). I used a silicone spatula trimmed to 14mm, covered with a pec-pad moistend with Eclipse solution. The article linked above has all the info and resources on where to get this stuff, but I bought from Adorama.

Spring Peepers

Tonight it's pouring rain. The temperature stayed above 40 all day and the wind is up. On my way home from work, lightning was flashing in the grey sky, but now the downpours have calmed to a drizzle and all the thunderstorms have passed along... for now anyway.

Outside my window is the sound of regular drip drip drips of rain freefalling from the second floor gutter and hitting the bent aluminum curve at the bottom of the downspout. Drip drip drip drip drip. It will do this all night. The other sound is the sound of the spring peepers. Tiny frogs that come out of the mud in spring all at once on a particular day and start singing. If you didn't know they were frogs, you might think some bunch of crazy song birds were up at night. Sweeet sweeeet sweeeet sw - sweee suh swee suh sweee sweet. It's a steady chorus late into the night. Every so often they all go silent, all at once, and then after a pause, they get into it again. At some point, they will stop singing altogether. I wonder if there is a leader frog that tells eveyone when to start and stop peeping. Hmmmm.

I LOVE Flash!

I just spent the better part of today trying to figure out why my stupid flash movie didn't work. I still don't know. Wouldn't work with the photos I prepped for it, but with test images, it works great. Tomorrow, I'll reprocess all the photos and see if they work. I really wonder why I'm in this business.

On the flip side... the boss just agreed to get me Adobe CS4 Web Pro... (sweet!)

I'm so tired I don't even know why I'm up right now. I have a bunch of photos that I want to upload, but it will take more energy than I have to get them done now. So, a quick blurb in the mummichog...

I found some motivation and started painting my storm windows yesterday. Yup.... that's right, the ones that have been stacked in the garage all winter. The ones I got last September so we'd conserve heat this winter. Well, I never was able to find a weekend to paint them, so they never made it up onto the house, and as I listen to the furnace blasting away right now, I cringe at the thought of what the heating costs are going to look like at the end of the season.

The temperature hit 48 degrees by yesterday afternoon, and I figured that would be good enough to get some paint down. I was wrong. It turned out that 48 was as warm as it was going to get. As I worked, the temperature went down. The latex paint I was using globbed up within minutes and when I thinned it with hot water, it went on too thin, so after fighting with two windows, I gave up. I got the chainsaw out and hacked up a few fallen trees and their branches into fireplace size pieces. I love the chainsaw. It beats painting any day, and I can use the wood to offset the heating cost next winter...(unlikely with our fireplace, but who knows).

Spring! 7:44 am

Hey it's officially spring (well not yet in Colorado)! So legend has it you can balance an egg on its end on the equinox. I've tried this year after year and it's never failed. However, I can't remember EVER trying it on any other day than the equinox, so maybe, with the same amount of determination, I could balance an egg on its end on say.... my birthday! I'll probably never try though, just because I wouldn't want to smash the mystery. Anyway... happy Srping, Happy Equinox. Now... where's the warm weather?

Whales...er Whale

I finally made it up to Provincetown, at the end of the earth, to look for north atlantic right whales. There are about 300 left in the world and each year, they come close into Cape Cod to feed on the baitfish-rich (krill, sand lances, etc) water of Cape Cod Bay. Last year they were in very close, and I saw a few feeding off Herring Cove beach, near Race Point in Provincetown. I got a late start, and arrived at the beach well after sunrise, missing all the magic of the sunrise over the sand flats. Still, the long shadows of the morning made for some great light and I had the entire beach to myself (except for a couple and thier dog that disapeared over the dunes into the National Seashore's "Beach Forest."

The colors and patterns were amazing on the sand and I had a hard time focusing on the horizon, where I hoped to see a whale. I did look up occasionally and eventually saw one whale. It looked like a finback though. It rolled to the surface, blew out a huge puff of spray and disappeard, rolled again another hundred feet in front of where it did the last time and then disappeared for good. The one big puff and straight line, deliberate path it made is why I think it was a "finner." The right whale has a very distinctive "V" shaped spout of water vapor, and they tend to roll around in the same place for a bit. So... one whale, and a hell of a photo trip. More photos on flickr later this week.

Brewster Oysters - Best in the World

The oyster farmers are out working on thier grants here in brewster. This is a grant by our home beach. The oysters live here in these cages, grow and fatten during the summer and are ready to harvest during the "e - r" months (SeptembER, OctobER, NovembER, DecembER, JanuarER... and even sometimes FebruarER)











Oyster cages on a farm off Brewster.










Wild oysters clinging to a stone on the Cape Cod Bay flats.

















An adult (harvestabale) oyster growing wild on the Cape Cod Bay flats. (The season ended on March 3rd though)

Everybody in the car...We are going OUT!

Did I write in here this morning? I guess I did... wow... long day. Anyway, the storm we were supposed to get today never materialized. It was another warm(ish) day with a full afternoon of blue sky. Of course we had to take advantage of it and neglect EVERYTHING that we had to get done this weekend. The list is endless, but I've all but given up on getting it done this year anyway, so why not! The choice wasn't difficult... 1. paint the bathroom to the tune of a screaming baby or 2. get out and enjoy the first really nice weather in 120 days while the baby naps in the jogging stroller. Done. We hit the bike path by 11:00 - all of us - two kids on bikes, Amy running (very quickly) and me taking up the rear, pushing the baby in our $5 yard-sale baby-jogger. It's only downfall is that it pulls to the left as I push it along, so I keep having to correct it. Someday I'll fix that too.

We stopped for lunch at "Local Flavor;" a sandwich joint on the bikepath, and on the way there, we saw our first blue bird of the year. My feet hurt and I think I have a sunburn, but man, it's nice to have these days.

Springtime On The Cape - Is Winter Over?

66 Degrees! Skunk cabbage is coming up along the swamp edges and the tips of daffodil stalks are coming up everyhwere. Sophie found a little crocus blooming by one of the downspouts, and I dug a mess of clams without freezing my fingers off. Oyster season ended 5 days ago and the time changed (spring forward) last night. I turned the outside water on and the kids rode bikes around and around the neighborhood (both collecting muddy dirt stripes on their backs.) The morning chatter of the birds is getting louder and there's only a few last remnants of snow in the yard. Dare I commit to Spring?? I think so, but I am prepared for a few more wintery blasts before... oh, say "Tax Day."

Tracks...

There is a thick crust of re-frozen once-slush snow everywhere outside my back slider window. It looks like its about 2 to 3 inches deep. On top of it, a thin layer of light puffy snow, only about a quarter of an inch deep, has accumulated, and has created a perfect medium for "releif in birdfeet." Everywhere there are little bird footprints. Thier meanderings in search of the remains of seeds that I have put out there, have created quite a design in the snow.

These days, the flocks ruturn each morning to eat a full tube of seads each day. There's obviously more birds showing up now than just last week - and a few more species too. The tube used to last a few days. Spring seems to be coming.... we just need the temperature to comply.