Saturday, May 22, 2021

Muggy Weather

 This is really muggy, summer weather and it makes me wonder what's coming this summer. I enjoy having the house open and the warm air wafting through, but for me, it's too hot to be comfortable working outside and my whole system is not quite ready for the transition from cold to hot. The vegetation is coming along nicely, in spite of not having much rain. Anita Kelman worked in my flower beds yesterday morning and they are looking much perkier. (Picture at right.) She will come back next week to do more near the house. We are going to


wait for the porch to be finished before we tackle anything on the back lawn, but I do have rhubarb that needs to be pampered to help it come back to life after having been moved a couple of times in the past three or four years. Right now, the back lawn is fairly torn up from tractors and heavy equipment going over it. That will all get fixed eventually.

I was outside watering a maple tree that Ben Ackerman transplanted for me when he dug for the porch foundation. The tree is about five inches in diameter and twenty feet or so tall. It seems to be doing just fine. While I was outside, I pulled a few dandelions that had grown into the crack in the driveway in front of my garage, and a few minutes later as I was sitting here at my computer, I felt something on my wrist and found it was a tick. Darn, they are lurking everywhere this year! Like the black flies aren't pesty enough, we have to put up with ticks!

Middle son, Bob, and I did a little "road trip" and lunch yesterday. We ended up at the little cafe in Peacham for lunch - really nice. We tried sitting outside, but the black flies were too bothersome, so we went upstairs in the loft over the restaurant. It was very nice and we could look down to watch people coming and going as they came in to pick up sandwiches or dessert treats. From there we went on to Groton and up Route 302 and took the Groton State Forrest road and the back road to Cabot so we could check out changes at Peacham Pond. We both wanted to stop at Cabot Greenhouse, and that was successful. Bob got a hanging plant Theresa had ordered, and I picked up more Moo-Doo for Anita to use.

I am always surprised at new homes being built and also how many buildings have simply disappeared. I hadn't been on most of the roads we took yesterday for a long time, and it shouldn't be surprising that things have changed, but it's confusing when I'm looking for a landmark farm or barn and it simply isn't there any longer. However, before we left Peacham, Bob drove around where the Peacham School used to be. It burned in the 1970s, when my kids were going to school there. We have great memories of the years there. I was working for Bill Lederer who lived on East Hill, not far from the school, and worked for the school part time to help with the kids' tuition. They were all involved in very interesting things while they were there, and we made great friends. Bob has kept in touch with several of his friends from those years. It was hard for us to remember exactly where the school was before it burned, but then we found the walkways and it all came flooding back to us. We remember vividly the morning we watched the school burning. There were some very sad people there that day. The school carried on in makeshift classrooms, but it was never quite the same. It's interesting that so many of the students who went to Peacham School have gone on to do some very interesting things and made good livings for themselves. The school was known as an "alternative school," and was generally an experiment in learning. As I recall, the concept was that youths will learn more quickly and better if they are allowed the freedom to choose what they are most interested in. The basic education principles are involved in just about everything one is interested in, and the teachers adapted to those special interests. It apparently worked. At least, for our family it worked. It was certainly not for everyone.

Enjoy the weekend - whatever the weather brings. Shelly Walker wrote yesterday: 

This warm weather is certainly not what we are used to, but it has had quite an effect on the water temperature.  Yesterday [Thursday] the water temp off my dock was 56 degrees.  I need at least 60 to swim comfortably.  This afternoon [Friday] it is up to 66!  I thought maybe my eyes were deceiving or my thermometer was broken.  So I put on my bathing suit and went swimming.  It was glorious!  

I know Andy Rudin was swimming at least a week ago, but he admitted it was VERY cold. I think about the time Andy was taking a dip, the air temperature was about equal to the water temp, somewhere in the low 50s, and that's too darned cold, I'm thinking! 

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