Happy Halloween!

A Typical Morning

Today started before the sun, with all 3 of my kids up and ready to go. Will got the day going with his good morning songs at 4:30. An hour later, I passed him to Amy, still singing and headed downstairs since I was now well awake. I got the coffee going and tried again in vain to find the motorola driver on the Verizon web site that will allow me to download stuff off my phone to my pc.

At 6:00 Max came down to watch his favorite morning cartoon, "Bakugon Battle Brawlers." I've watched it a couple times and still don't know exactly what it's all about. I'm sure it's mostly a marketing tool for it's action figures and vice versa. At about 6:15 Sophie came down and I startled her as I came out of my office, heading to the kitchen for more coffee. We both came around the corner at the same time and she leaped and shreaked, then jumped into my arms. We both laughed as I squeezed her. Her poor little heart was beating a thousand miles per hour.

I had promised her she could draw on the computer so at this point, my search for a driver ended. Just as well. All dead ends. I got Sophie going with Microsoft's "Paint." Its a terribly clunky bitmap drawing program, but she has fun with it. I helped her get going with a pumpkin scene she wanted to do, and ended up sitting with her for the next 45 minutes or so, making pumpkins on a fence... (she stole the idea from her brother who did the same drawing yesterday).

At 7:00 "Arthur" comes on public television... a GREAT kid's cartoon, and even if the kids don't pick it up, it does have a message/moral on each show. Plus it's funny for adults too! After that we all convened in the kitchen (Will still singing) and had breakfast on the fly. Ten minutes later we were off to catch the school bus. Once I got back from the bus drop, I flung the fixin's for a sandwich together, bounced Will in my arms while Amy grabbed a quick shower, and then I raced off to work to barely get there by 9:00....whoa...

Every morning goes something like this as four and a half hours FLY by in a blink of an eye.

More Oyster Egg Hunting

There seem to be an abundance of oysters in the Brewster stocks. Either that or it was so nasty last week that people just gave up the hunt. Yesterday, the crowd was out in force again, collecting their 5 entitled quarts. I had to be at a Birthday Party (see previous Hello Kitty Post) at at 3:00, so not only was my venture dependent on the tide, but time as well. I would have to get out into deep water before it was low enough, which meant I might be getting wet.

Flats workable at 2 hours before low.

Low tide 4:00

I waded out at 1:30

At 1:30, the tide was not quite low enough to work. I could SEE oysters on the bottom, but even with my barbeque tonges, I coudn't quite reach them. At one point, I dropped my tongues, and that preoccupied me for a good 10 minutes as I tried to "hacky sack" them up from the bottom on my wader-bood bound feet. Once I had them back in hand, the tide was out JUST far enough for me to pluck a few from a pile I found. Still, I got my arm soaked all the way up to the pits, but I wasn't the only one (see the lady in the photo? She's got water down her waders and soaked from the neck to her hand too). Seems a lot of ealy birds were trying to get their oystering in before the end of the Pats game (which they won) .

I got my limit and made it home by 2:48 for the party. Hello Kitty! (I still don't know what Hello Kitty really is...)

Soccer, Frogs, and HELLO KITTY!

It's 7:00 in the morning. I've been up since 5:00 putting the first colors on a "Hello Kitty" cake for my little niece, "Amelia's" birthday party. For her birthday, she got a trip to Cape Cod with her Mother; a special trip for her, since her sister had to stay home. So we are happy to have Rosemary and Amelia, but are missing Jay and Maggie. The white and pink are done and I just have the details to go... not sure how I'm going to do the black outlines yet... It's hard to make black frosting and the gunk that comes in those tubes are disgusting.

Yesterday was a fun day all around. It started with Max's Soccer game and it turned out to be a special one for him. He scored 2 goals, had two assists and when he was goaltending, he stopped 4 hard shots on the net. All the kids looked great, and it was nice to see it all come together for the last game of the season.

Sophie and Amelia played and played, putting on "shows" in the garage and passing out "tickets" for us to come watch them on scooters, doing tricks and hamming around. Later we found a wood frog (Rana sylvatica) by the side of the house. It was pretty big for the frogs we find around here, the biggest of all the frogs we've seen. The girls, for whatever reason, didn't really care about it, but Max was into it. He tried to catch it, but whenever the frog jumped, Max "jumped," and he could never catch it. Or when he DID catch it, it hopped right out of his hands. I finally snatched the thing and passed it around, but still the girls didn't want to hold it. Go figure.

(click photo to see a larger size)

If it seems like it's too good to be true...

Last Sunday when I was pre-occupied with scrounging up oysters at the adult Easter egg hunt, I let a wave wash up over my chest wader pocket. No big deal, it happens all the time, except this time, I had my cell phone in that pocket. Now usually, I leave the phone in my bucket of stuff on the beach, but Amy wanted me to call her if I was going to be late. Industrious person that I am, I figured that I'd call from the water giving me a few extra minutes if I was indeed going to be late. Well, I WAS late, and when I pulled my phone out of my waders, it was wet. Not just wet... soaked. It's been wet before, so when I got home, I rinsed it out with fresh water and let it dry. eventually, to my glee, it came back on. Then it shut right off again. On Monday, it came on again, but I couldn't do anything with it. It was spent, but could I get my contacts off it???

Our 2-year contract with Verizon was up, so I went in to get new phones and we ended up getting two brand new phones for $20. The guy said they were $280 dollar phones! They're nice, shiny new gadgets with camera, video, blue tooth, all kinds of interactivity etc. etc. etc. Wow, cool, huh! I signed on for another two years. Of course I won't use all that stuff, but I see how they getcha: After reading a few pages in the 150-page half of the manual (the other 150 pages were upside down and in spanish, starting from the back, or the spanish front I guess) I kept finding at the end of every paragraph, "additional usage fees and/service agreement may apply." Ahh of course! Entice you with the gadgets, get you hooked and you will pay for your addictions. The old baby mouse in the beer bottle... well kinda. (oh yeah, and no... they couldn't get all my contacts off the old phone)

Busy Week: Manatee, Corn Maze, Apple Picking, Red Sox and Oysters

I've had a busy week and have a lot to catch up on (note the tagline for my blog) since my last post, last Sunday.... so here goes...

MANATEE:
Word on the Manatee is that the poor guy was on his way out long before they even hoisted him from the water. Now the question people are trying to get answers on is why couldn't they have done the rescue earlier. Hindsight...ya know. I still stick by my original post. Leave well enough alone. He probably had reasons for being here. Who knows. We move on...
(Click for More Photos)


CORN MAZE/APPLE PICKING:
Last Sunday was our traditional Fall trip out Amy's parents house in Holden. We go through a big Corn Maze and go apple picking. The Maze is huge and has a different theme every year. This year it was Oympics. So far, the only year we've made it out without help was our first year. Since then, we've had to ask the "Maze Assistants" for clues. They hang out on the bridges. Still, even with help, it took us over 3 hours to get out. After that, we got our annual half-bushel of fresh apples. So good.
(Photos coming soon)

RED SOX:
YOUUUuuuuuuuuuuk! Here we go again. Hoping for another good game tonight. I've bootlegged a bunch of red sox stuff from the web and the kids and I made T-shirts for the game last night. (looks like the team spirit helped our boys!)
(Photos coming soon)

OYSTER SUNDAYS BEGIN:
Finally, today was "Oyster Sunday" in Brewster. Hmmm "Oyster Sunday." I just realized how much that sounds like "Easter Sunday." Funny because the two days share similar traditional "hunts." On Easter Sunday, of course, the kids hunt for Easter eggs. On "Oyster Sunday," its the adults that do the "hunting," and it's oysters they're after.

The town of Brewster, has several open shelfishing seasons during the year for differennt types of shellfish. Currently it's soft-shell clam and oyster season. I have my secret haunts for finding the softshells, but sadly, the oyster stocks have all but been depleted. However, twice a year, the week before a certain designated Sunday, the Brewster shelfish constable "releases" a cache of the town's (aquaculture-farmed) oysters at a specified location on one of our beaches. (Basically, he floats over the designated area in a skiff at high tide and flings out the oysters.) If you have a Brewster shellfishing license your entitled to go wade out into the brine with a pair of barbeque tongs with around a hundred or so other enthusiastic competitors, and seek out your limit. It truly is a giant aquatic Easter egg hunt for adults. [more photos]

Today I found 56 oysters (my limit of 5 quarts) which if you like oysters, is WELL worth the yearly license fee... currently $20. Here they are displayed on my favorite piece of pottery. A platter made by my friend Keith Kreeger. (Hey Keith, let's eat!)
[more photos]

Sad Ending for Our Manatee

Manatee Update: It turns out that a 20+ hour trip in the back of a truck is just as risky as our animal-rescuing officials predicted. Our poor manatee, named after the town on Cape Cod where he had been residing, died an hour before he arrived at his destination in Florida. I feared that it may have been the wrong thing to do, but we trust our leaders will do the right thing. I hope for their sake that this "rescue" attempt wasn't just an attempt to put a feather in thier own caps. Perhaps with a little more planning and assistance from local entities, a 2 or 3-phase trip could have been attempted. Why couldn't he have been moved to a closer aquarium for rehabilitation? Did anyone ask this question? We have Boston, Mystic, and even several more smaller places that may have been able to temporarily accommodate him while he regained strength for a long trip? How shocking for this poor creature, to be hauled out of his surroundings and sent into the unknown and the unfamiliar, as the wieght of himself and his organs slowly crushed him over 19 hours. (I'm guessing at all this. The details are not out, but I certainly hope I'm wrong and that he died of an illness or just old age)

Manatee on Cape Cod?!? Really!

(Click images for a larger view)

Have you heard the latest bigfoot story? Well it's not a bigfoot it's a big Flipper. Someone saw a Manatee in Cape Cod Bay early last week and for about a week it was this myth, and then slowly it became validated as more sightings came in, and then photos started to surface of the creature. But now, we have a special treat because he/she IS real and has decided to settle in to a mid cape estruary, Sesuit Creek. The poor thing looks so old and tired and according to experts she has only one eye. She also has a wound to one of her flippers (I call her "she" because it seems fitting... you know... a sea cow... an ancient mariner's mermaid - good lord how did they mistake one of these for one of those...long LONG days at sea I guess.) View my Cape Cod Manatee Photos on Flickr.

Today, on my way to work, I stopped by the harbor hoping to get a glimpse of her, and was so lucky to have gotten this chance. I'll have some photos posted on Flickr shortly of the encounter.

I guess they're going to try to move her to Florida where she won't have to deal with the season's end cold water. According to the paper, moving a Manatee is no easy task and is very risky for the Manatee. I hope she makes it and I hope it's not the wrong thing to do. Something tells me she wants to be here and maybe she's even been here before. Maybe she WANTS this as her final resting place... who knows... just not sure how much we should muddle with nature in this case. She seems so happy here.

Little Neck STEW!

So I dug all these clams the other day (see earlier post), and I've been eating them every day since. When Keith and Evangelina had us over for dinner on Sunday night, Keith made a nice garlic broth for the ones I brought to his house, and he taught me how to make it.

Tonght, to a similar broth, I added tomatoes, red peppers, hot peppers and zuccini to get a nice spicy red sauce, served with a bunch of the littler clams over pasta. Amy doesn't eat clams so I had them all to myself again. (She liked the sauce though)

Red Sox Win! (ALDS)

Yeah! What a game... What a series! Well, actually, I slept through the first two games. I was so frustrated with myself, and felt like such a bad fan, (but I did catch up on all the plays and scores on mlb the next morning). I just got sucked in by those wonderful bean-bag chairs while putting the kids to bed and the next thing I knew it was 3 am. I marathonned through the 5 1/2-hour 3rd game's loss, and kicked myself for NOT opting for the bean-bags that night. (Still a great game!)

Then tonight... TONIGHT! Tonight those Sox, they launched me on the requisite Red Sox Fan's roller coaster ride, right down to the finish. Way to go good old V-Tech with that key out on the suicide squeeze. How in the world does he get those duck legs going so fast? Way to go OTHER Jason with the big double and perfect slide home on Lowrie's base hit. Lester was dead on, Kotsay (sp) rocked, Pedroia, Youk... What a great game. It's so fun to be a Sox Fan. Can't wait for the Rays series. Oooooh it's gonna be good.

Little Neck Day

Yesterday, in Brewster, was the start of Little-Neck Week. (Small Quahogs or Hardshell Clams). It was cool and drizzly, but the usual crowd was out. The first photo was at the very beginning of the tide, as it went out futher, more people showed up. Eventually, there were probably about 100 people out there. The clams are good raw, in a garlic broth (thanks for the recipe, Keith!) or cooked on the grill in thier own juice. I got about 60 which made my week's limit of 5 quarts.

False Albacore Craziness

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In times of trouble, you can worry about how things are going to turn out or, try to avoid the thought of it all. One good way to avoid thinking about horrible things, like what's happening to your life's savings, is to spend it and go fishing. If you're fishing for hard-to-catch fish like the greyhound of the sea... the false albacore, then you have no time to think about anything but getting the fish ON the hook. Then, if and when you DO get one of these suckers to bite... all you can do is think about how to keep him on the line right to the edge of the boat. (More pics on my flickr site)

Keith Kreeger and I went out with Alan Hastbaka of "Got Stryper Charters" this past Tuesday in search of the speedy "False Albacore." Alan knew they would be off Nantucket, and didn't waste any time hauling right over there. Even though some of his guide-buddies were chiming in from the Monomoy Rips, Alan played his hunch and it payed off. We got into them within the first hour of arriving at our spot and the action heated up steadily until the tide turned. Then it became spotty and the fish got REALLY finicky.

Keith was using spinning gear and had 2 for 4. These were his first false albacores, so it was exciting for me to share in his initiation. I had a couple bumps on my fly rod early, but they didn't feel like albies. Finally, after changing to intermediate line on a tip from one of Alan's guide buddies, I hooked up and landed this beautiful 11+ pounder. (It may have been more, but Alan only weighed HIS fish!) Mine was about the same size, if not slightly bigger than his (which was 11.4 lbs), so that's why I'm guessing 11+.

Toward the end of the trip, as the action slowed, we watched some kind of jacks congregating below the boat. It was pretty cool to see jacks, if that's what they were, this far up the coast. Keith was fooling with them with his albie rig and managed to tease up a scup. (Photo at right: not quite the fight of an albie, but still a fish!)

All in all a great day.

15 Year Anniversary at Chillingsworth

Hey!
Married 15 years now... Amy and I just celebrated our 15th anniversary. Good time... most expensive french food in town, parents babysitting, pouring rain, hurricane on the way, power out during coffee, too dark to use the bathroom at the restaurant, used the beach instead... romantic? almost. Now putting the 1-month old to bed. sigh...

Cake 13 - Mixed Media - Butter Cream on Chocolate

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Max turned 8 a few days ago, but we celebrated his birthday today. Every year I make a cake for the kids on their birthday (Max 8 and Sophie 5). This was Cake no. 13. Sadly, it's the only art I do these days. Fortunately, it's fun! This year Max had no idea what theme he wanted. A dinosaur would have been a good way to go, but apparently I've done two for him in the past. I remember one. I can barely remember my street address let alone what cakes I've made over the past 8 years, so I didnt' argue.

So what to do? He loves baseball, and with the season coming to and end and an all but guaranteed slot in the playoffs, I went with Fenway Park. He (we) had gotten a pair of tickets from Amy's Dad as an early birthday present this year. We watched them beat Texas back in August for Max's first-watched-win at Fenway (poor kid, he's 1 for 4).

These are the pics of the cake. I have pics of the Mini Golf party up on Flickr. So those of you who care to view them, send me your account name so I can add you to my viewers list.

(click on images for a larger view)

Has a week really gone by?

My day started yesterday with a 7:00 am dentist appointment. Now its 39 1/2 hours later and I'm still up... somehow. Somewhere in there I had 4 hours of sleep in a row, I think between 1 am 5 am this morning. Will is now asleep too. He's snoozing next to me in his bouncy seat. He's stirring though and should be up any minute, so I've only got a few minutes...

Max turned 8 today, and he had fun opening presents and eating a "pudding cake." His REAL cake will come this weekend at his "Kid B-day" with all his friends.

Sophie loves "Mothering" with her new "living doll". She's so good with Will; changing him, holding him, giving him bottles. She's great, but now is acting out more often these days trying not to slip into middle-child-obscurity. I don't blame her.

Soccer draft was tonight. I'm coaching again, and I think we'll have a fun team this year. I've got 9 kids this time as opposed to 15 last year. Subbing will be much easier with 9. I was able to get a couple of Max's close friends on his team, and maybe he'll make some new ones too.

The days are getting shorter and nights are definately cooler. We still don't have any storm windows for the downstairs, nor do we have gutters, insulation in the cellar, nor tires for the Prius. Ugh.

The Last of the Summer Quahogs

Hanna came and went so quickly that if you were a heavy sleeper, you'd never know that the eye of a tropical storm passed over you. That huge mass of clouds shown in my previou spost passed to the west of us and the wind whipped up on the other. We'd be lucky if we got a full inch of rain out of it here in Brewster. The wind was weak too. Aside from a blanket of locust leaves on the lawn and a few dead ends off a pine tree, our neighborhood was left untouched. And, above us, a perfectly cloudless blue sky. The day remained breezy, but with the heat, it felt good.


I was itching to get down to the water to see if there was any damage to the coast, and checking the tide chart, I found low tide was at around noon. I figured I'd see if there were any leftover quahogs from the August stock while we were down there. Amy wanted the kids out of the house, so off we went. It was gorgeous down there. Some of the best weather we'd had all summer and only 4 or 5 families camped on the beach. The usual mob of clammers for a sunday noon low was sparse and quiet. We walked out, found 10 good stuffers and called it a day. The kids played on the flats and played in the warm September water. I've got to get out there one of these early mornings to see if the Stripers are hungry again and if the big blues are in close. Not many weeks left for fishing.

(Max found a clam with a message! Click image for full size)

Hanna's Knocking

All day we have been waiting for the arrival of T.S. Hanna. Hanna's not particularly a dangerous storm, but could bring some good rain and wind. Certainly, the beaches will have some erosion.

The outer bands of the storm have been passing over weakly since about 1:00 this morning, with occasional downpours, but nothing torrential yet. The center of rotation is still about 250 miles to the south east, but is moving at 28 mph toward us. It looks like we'll be in the top right quadrant (with the strongest winds) so it should be a good blow tonight. Most of the rain looks like its west of us. We'll see. It's always exciting to see what these storms bring.

End of Summer

So it's back to school for the kids, and alls going well so far. Labor Day weekend had it's ups and downs. The highlight was the Kreegers "End of Summer" aka "Jumpy Tent" aka "Margarita Machine" birthday party for Ale. The kids jumped for over 5 hours straight, and the Kreeger kids were bounding before and after I left. I'm guessing they might still be sleeping it off. As for the adults, well... some of them might still be sleeping it off too, considering the number of machine-fulls of margaritas that were drunk. Man were they good!


On the downside, I ended up working most of Saturday morning and Max was so sick on Labor Day that we didnt' get to go close the Wychmere Harbor Club like we do every year. It's the only day Amy lets us go play in the big pool and eat the great food and drink the expensive drinks... but I guess there's always next year...

Back to School and Tropical Weather

So tomorrow is back-to-school for the kids. It's always amazing how fast the summer goes, but we sure did a lot. The great thing about Cape Cod after Labor Day though is that the summer actually continues. And we locals can keep it to ourselves with more elbow room on the beach, less boats on the flats, and less cars on all my secret routes to work. The exotic fish are in (like Bonito and Albies), waves are up with the occasional passing tropical storm, and best of all.... Amy's home on Saturdays. It's back to a slower, more controlled pace, but still just as nice out... Ohhh but look what's looming. Its our first chance of a good tropical storm or even maybe a hurricane. I've always loved a good storm, just as long as it's not too severe. I don't think I'd like to deal with a major hurricane right now, especially since we just got our house finished... or close to finished, well, pretty much stalled, but mostly done... I'll probably never be done with it...

Will Comes Home

Will came home today. He's such an awesome little guy, so tiny, very alert and he's been sleeping all day... which means he'll be UP ALL NIGHT! Photos coming on Flickr, so if you haven't signed up yet, please do. Here he is with his big bro and sis!

Click Here to sign up, then email me your screen name and I'll get you set up as one of my contacts. Also, if you already have a yahoo account, just send me your yahoo email and I'll make you one of my contacts.

(click photo for a larger view)