Tag: Summer

A schooner is not a sloop, pay attention

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

A sloop has only one mast, for starters.

There’s a whole new vocabulary to learn.

It’s a way of looking through the eyes of others.

Those things on the ropes, er, lines are called baggy wrinkles. They protect the lines and sheets, i.e. sails, from harmful rubbing. That is, they’re a furry cover for rope sphering.

Deck prism is another term. It’s a small round window. Here’s how it looked from my bunk. Overhead, people were walking on it.

Hatch is the opening between the deck and the hold below. This one connects by a ladder (not stairs) to cabins (aka staterooms).

Another leads to the galley, which includes what others would call a kitchen.

As one neighbor says, ‘It’s my least favorite job’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

His sympathy was much appreciated while I worked with one around the garden.

So here’s why I hate using a weed whacker.

  1. My shoes and legs or pants get splattered in green juice.
  2. As do my hair, eyes, and lips. (I don’t like slurpies.)
  3. Stems and blades of tall grasses and weeds often twist into a knot around the connection of the driveshaft to trimmer spool. Their tangling soon chokes the high-speed revolutions. Even with a razor blade, they’re hard to extract. I can spend more time clearing this than actually cutting the tall grasses and weeds.
  4. The two plastic trimmer cords – the part that actually cuts the greens – are hard to extend to the desired length or to replace when the spool’s empty. The procedures feel counterintuitive. And they quickly fray in actual usage.
  5. The “trimming” isn’t nearly as precise in its surgery as my wife presumes. It’s more like using a chainsaw than a scalpel.
  6. That means there’s collateral damage. Domestic flowers and vegetable plants are at risk, especially if I bump into something I can’t see behind me. Oops! Sorry.
  7. I have an electric battery-driven version, a huge advance over the gasoline alternative. Just the thought of having to deal with the fuel mixture, rip-cord starter, or other maintenance is enough to put on my to-hate list.
  8. The battery in mine is difficult to remove for recharging. It’s just too tight to get out without an extra set of hands. Help!
  9. It’s top-heavy, meaning that when I’m trying to clear those tangles in No. 3 or am trying to store it in the shed, it wants to roll over inconveniently or just fall over.
  10. They’re noisy, even the electric-battery versions like ours.

Would herbicides, which we don’t use, do the job better? (Satan, get thee behind me.)

When’s the last time I had a vacation? A REAL vacation?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Not since remarrying 23 years ago, curiously, even though we have taken some delightful extended weekends here in New England but not yet beyond.

The closest I’ve come to solo is the week of the annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, held on college campuses in early August. But there, the emphasis has been on doing Quaker business and spiritual renewal together.

Maybe that’s one reason I’m so excited by my upcoming windjammer adventure, whatever the weather.

Better yet, it’s following on one of our family weekends away, the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine. Even if I expect to be spending part of that manning the Quaker booth there.

And better yet, I’ll be with a dear friend of my retirement years – somebody who grew up on the waters, unlike me.

So what’s your idea of a “vacation” Even in a shoulder season, where we are now?

 

Clammed up pun

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

We’ve driven past the site countless times without noticing the motto on the now abandoned motel and restaurant. Oh, shucks.

Here’s the stone dam behind it, its pond long drained, built for the famed iron works in Pembroke in 1832. Here it’s seen from away from the U.S. 1 highway.