March 2018 Island Trip – Day One

I drove from the ferry straight to the local hardware store where there’s a magazine swap setup, and added 50 of my older, but lovely gardening magazines. While there I ran into a friend of my parents from the days of the coffee club. We walked to tea and spent a wonderful 45 minutes catching up. Alan walked me back to the truck, amused at my ‘green gage plum’ sapling connection, which was my next stop. The gal who posted free green gage plum saplings ran out! I’ll get some from her next month. I returned to town to look for replacement dice for our backgammon board. The ones we recently purchased are chipping. The first toy store delivered. Next was a fast stop at the market for lox scraps, which our mainland market didn’t have. A favorite breakfast while I’m here is toast with brie or cream cheese and lox. Delicious, and gets me down the road, which I never get off of in a timely fashion in order to eat lunch before my blood sugar gets dicey. By the time I got to the house I was starving…

After unloading the truck and making an easy hearty soup for lunch, I got up to the following:

• Communicated with:
• The tile guy, as it looked like he’d left the house for a lunch break. That was not the case. He’ll be back on Thursday to start setting tile.
• The neighbor who does finish carpentry, letting him know I’m here. He’s going to show me why the doors my dad made for the bathroom cabinets won’t work, and refer me to another carpenter as he’s incredibly busy.
• The painter, letting him know the bathroom skylight well is bone dry. When he was last here, the well was so wet we thought there might be a leak at the skylight. I’ve asked him what his schedule looks like. I can bum a shower at a neighbor’s in order to keep the room dry if his schedule allows him to be here soon.
• The well driller, who is going to sharpen his pencil, and suggested, before I did, that if I knew someone who could do the trenching, I could save some money. This prompted me to,
• Email our Wonderful Neighbor, who’s on his winter travels with his wife, and see if he’s willing to dig a 15′ trench.

•  I cleaned up after the tile guy so I could use the living room.
• Dusted and vacuumed most of the house.
• Ventured into the upper barn to find most of its light working! Poltergeist! I took advantage of this good luck and gathered the rest of the haz-mat stuff, and dump items as well.
• I’ve triaged, with fresh eyes, the kitchen cabinets. The ravens will be well fed tomorrow. 
• All the furniture candidates for mom’s apartment have been measured.
• Watered the plants, and then discovered a leak in one of the plant’s dishes. The small roasting pan mom had used as a dish for this plant, gave it up Today!! I’m thankful it didn’t happen earlier.
• Lit the oil stove, as the cast iron ‘face’ of the propane insert, due to the tiling project has been taken off the face of the stove. The oil stove, I confess, scares me a little. There are no instructions, no available replacement parts, and you have to prime it with denatured alcohol. It’s humming along perfectly right now. It’s a warm 63 degrees and rising. Welcome to the country!

‘Nite