Island Update Ending August 26, 2007

Monday got off early with Diane et al departing at 0615. I am sure everyone has read her saga of trying to get home from the island. After she left we headed home for breakfast. Mom did her usual end of visit washing as well and baking muffins for the Senior Lunch. All Dad did was go patch a hole in the ramp to the dining room at the 5th Maine to prevent any senior from falling through. Later Mom went up and visited Marge. We did have some rain off and on starting at noon (lunch time) and thunder off in the distance during the afternoon. Tuesday was a beautiful day - on the cool side, sweat shirts in the shade and wind. We are both pretty well recovered from Sunday's long tiring day. Just worked around the house - there is no end to things that need to be done.

Wednesday we got up later than usual, just sort of laid around for awhile before deciding to catch the 0945, this being market day. We did get some blueberries, the small ones are hard to find and expensive this year. We of course ran errands, total of 9, mostly routine, but we think we have found a place for decent window shades and we got a flag, brass snaps and halyard or as the man at the flag store said "rope". Lunch was Chinese. We headed home on the 1735, Dong dropped by and then we went to a lecture at the 5th Maine about island home names - rather disappointing.

Thursday was walk with Denise day which we haven't very often since coming north. Dad managed to get another pillar completed/repaired - it needed lots of help, but did turn out okay. Mom went to a library meeting given by an author about the process for illustrating a children's book set in Bangladesh. It actually sounded quite interesting if one is interested in that sort of thing. Later we had a thunderstorm with heavy rain and high winds. One of those storms where the rain hits the picture window all the way to the top.

Lots of painting done the rest of the week with Francisco (works for Dong, but it is hard to tell for how long because he is a very slow learner which doesn't sit too well with Dong) so he has been doing lots of scraping while Dong does the painting. So far they have completely done the front and back porches and both stairs. Dong also managed to carry down lumber on Saturday and repaired the back porch, some of which had rotted. They also scraped and painted the sills all around the lower part of the porches. Mom finally got the house put back together, that is laundry finished, beds made and house cleaned. Dad got another pillar rebuilt and did some porch railing painting and stuff like that. These days were really pretty routine and easy to handle. The next two weeks we have a pretty tight schedule with something happening most every day.

That is it for another week, We think.

Love, Mom and Dad

PS. On Wednesday after eating Chinese Mom went to the very nice shoe store next door to the Chinese restaurant. This is a shoe store with good shoes and knowledgeable people who actually wait on you. She did an amazing thing, she bought 3 pairs of shoes, but what is more amazing is she threw 2 pairs away.

PSS. I stand corrected on the 7 masted schooner. What I remembered at the Maine Maritime Museum at Bath was a huge many masted schooner launched in Bath in 1907 It extended from a street parallel to the river down into the river. As it turns out it was the Wyoming, the tenth and last six masted schooner ever built. It was lost with all hands off the coast of New England in 1924. The seven masted was the Thomas W. Lawson built in 1902 in Quincy, MA.