More on Cape Cod Erosion

Back on March 9^th, I posted “Cape Cod Becoming Four Islands.” If you care to go back and read that (see the left column for an easy way to get to that article), you will see that the latest news from the Marconi Site was predicted. Not just by me…(that’s a little egotistical for me to think that), but by environmentalists and Cape Codologists for some time now.

In this morning’s Cape Cod Times online there is an article about the “Seashore tears down Marconi exhibit.”  In the past eight months the amount of erosion…40 to 50 feet of land…has been chewed away by recent storms.

I will be on the Cape in mid-September to see the damage for myself. I expect I will have pictures. I have so many pictures from past years that I might be able to post before and after.

Until then, I would like to get in touch with the retired science teacher living in Chatham who emailed me after the March article. I have had a computer meltdown since, and lost all my email addresses. I hope you still read my journal and will get in touch. I would love to meet you while I’m on the Cape in September. I'll only be there for 3 days, and will be visiting family and friends while I'm there, so I'll be very busy.

Bike Riding Between Heat Waves

The last time I was out on my bike was three weeks ago.

On Friday of last week it finally was cool enough in the morning to consider a bike ride. It turned out to be a perfect cool morning. However, I had an eye doctor appointment at 10:30, so riding was not going to happen.

And along came Saturday. Cool morning with cloudy skies. That I like. I can’t take much sun or heat. I was going to ride the Canal pathway, but, decided instead to do errands…mostly go buy a birthday card for my oldest son who turns 50 on Monday (that’s tomorrow as I write this).

After a 3.5-mile ride I arrive at the card store in a fine mist. That’s ok. The card is bought and signed and I head on over to my son’s house to deliver it. I know he’s not home. He’s at the Rhode Island shore the weekend. I let my self into his house and put the card on the table.

While I’m there, I water some of his plants on the porch; use the bathroom; and turn on the TV to the Weather Channel to catch the weather radar. Well, that didn’t look promising. The mist I had been feeling was going to turn into light to moderate rain in about five minutes and last about an hour or so. I decided I wasn’t going to hang around for an hour.

I had not gone far when it started to rain…as I knew it would. When it started coming down a little harder I had a flashback to the time my daughter, Kathy, and I rode the Erie Canal Pathway in 2008 when I was 72. The day we rode from Rome, NY to Little Falls (50 miles) we rode in torrential rain for the last 30 miles. Soaked to the skin. But this was not the Erie Canal trip and my time in the rain would only be 20 minutes or so…so suck it up!

Even with the rain it felt good to be out on the road.

And now, today, we will be starting another heat wave. This one looks like it will last all week. How long will it be this time before I get to ride again? Hopefully I won’t have any appointments scheduled when that day finally does arrive.

NOTE: Should you have an interest in reading all about the Erie Canal adventure, you can go to my on-line journal at: http://eriecanaladventure.blogspot.com.

Hot and Humid

Here we are again…another heat wave. In the northeast, it takes three days of 90° or more to constitute a heat wave. Today is day four and should be the last for several days. The humidity is expected to continue. As grateful as I am for the portable air conditioner I have in my bedroom, I really look forward to being able to sleep with my windows open.

You might have heard the saying, “it’s not the heat it’s the humidity!” That is the truth. When the dew point is in the 70s day and night after day and night one’s store of good humor begins to get shabby around the edges.

If I need to go out, I make sure it’s early in the morning before things get too hot. This morning, I went out in the little garden at the back of my condo to weed as much as I could before the heat set in. First I put on a long sleeved shirt that I had treated with bug spray, then sprayed my shorts and legs. Having done that I set about to try to figure out what was a weed and what was not. There are a couple of things growing out there that I know are weeds, but it looks like they will flower. I’m not picky about where my flowers come from. If that weed wants to flower, I’ll be the first one out there admiring it!

It doesn’t look like my morning glories will blossom. Maybe it’s because I planted them on the back side of the condo where they don’t get sun until 11 o’clock or so. Next year I will plant them out front and plant from seeds…not wait until the plants are ready in the garden shop.

I have 15 tomatoes of varying sizes. When they first appeared, they grew quite rapidly and then they seemed to stop. I’m just hoping they will ripen. Right now the biggest one is about the size of a plum and they go down to grape size from there. I was hoping to have so many ripen at one time I would have to freeze what I couldn’t use right away. Not sure that is going to be a concern.

But it is July after all. And this July is so very different from last July and I’m sure next July will be different, too. It is quite possible that the jet stream will do something different in the next few days and the northeast could be switched to a cool and comfortable rest-of-the-summer. Please, God!