December 2022 Island Trip – Day 2

I slept well last night. Stella’s (coil) mattress is brand new and tells us we need to replace our old early model space-aged foam mattress. It came with a ‘declining’ Simon’s 30-year warranty about 21-years ago. If we made a claim, it’d eat 8-months of our lives and cough up $57.98.

I started the day continuing to binge-read a book I bought yesterday, “I’m Glad My Mom Died.” No, I’m not glad my mom died, though I’m thankful she’s not suffering from a cruel disease that robbed of her intellect, writing, humor, and wide arch of artistic endeavors. This book was mentioned by friends the other evening for their own reasons. I am, thankfully, finding that nothing about the story relates to my relationship with my mom, but it does help me see how others in my life, including my mom, have suffered from their parents’ mental heath struggles.

I enjoyed tea with my tenants, and took pictures of the 1959 Steam Punk ceramic wall heater in the master bedroom, with a tape measure, to send to the electrician. Replacing this unit is high on my list. The tenants asked about the two bird houses on the property, one made by my grandfather. We set out to look at Grandpa’s Marlin house, probably salvageable, installed two additional bird houses on the wood shed, that were looking for a home, and went hunting for mom’s rhubarb, which was dormant.

I painted the trim for either side of the fake tile in the kitchen, and then set out with a hand saw to remove the last bit of fencing on the back side of the open shed. It took 3-minutes. Old wood cuts quick. This simply removes an unneeded barrier around the corner of the building.

Next up was the East side of the woodshed. There were a lot of rotten planks, nettles, and brambles. I tried to clean things up and then realized there was nothing to salvage. I carrying what I could to the burn pile and will use the truck to move the rest tomorrow. It will be SO good for this little building to NOT have rotting wood nestled up next to it.

The 50’ fir between Stella and the house was pruned to remove broken, dead, and crossing branchs a few weeks ago. It looks so much better than it did.

Once back in Stella, mid-afternoon, and back to my binge reading, I got up and happened to look out the window. There were at least 50 robins, and a compliment of chickadees, in Stella’s meadow and on her pad! They were even on Stella’s roof. I could hear them scuttling around. It was magical!

My tenants invited me for dinner. It was a lovely gathering. We are aligned in all the important ways.