Saturday was a gray day but made for an interesting time-lapse of cloud movement. I washed the deck, Jodi weeded a bit, walked Kuper, then headed into town to meet Mom at the grocery store.
When they returned Jodi and I washed the windows then headed over to the cabins for the annual opening ritual. Maren had asked me to open them up so we attached things, closed the valves and with Jodi stationed at the cabin I went up to the road and turned on the water.
Unwinterizing the cabins is fairly easy, but we did have a few freezes and frozen water can cause problems. I closed the cabins up last year and if I didn't do something right, I would soon find out. In addition we have a 46 year old water heater in the guest cabin that has outlived its life expectancy by a factor of 2. Or 3. It should have broken down in the 80's, but continues to work.
Aside from the normal hissing of the faucets as the hot water tank filled there was no sound coming from unusual places. Dad and I opened the cabin up a few years ago and he had forgot he had loosened the top nuts of the main cabin hot water heater the previous fall. Water sprayed all over! Fortunately no such drama this year and after a quick cleaning, they'll be ready to go.
By the time we had opened up the cabins, a front had swept in and the evening descended into a gray gloom. We could see the front coming up the channel and soon rain was pelting down. The wind picked up and we saw a curious event. A coast guard cutter had its blue light going and the coast guard tender was following 5 guys in a slightly overloaded aluminum skiff. To their credit the guys in the skiff all had life preservers on, but we wondered what the story was with this skiff going across the channel in conditions that it was only marginally prepared for. The CG inflatable stayed with the skiff until it disappeared around Jones Island.
Mom prepared appetizers and she had her first Manhattan of the year. Let Saturday night happy hour begin!!
Mom is doing better, but her back continues to plague her. Seems like it's 2 steps forward, 1 back. Slight over exertion on a good day is followed by increased pain the next. The good news is that the walker remains ready, but not often used.
Sunday's sunrise was considerably better than Saturday's and Jodi prepared a farm fresh egg breakfast (yum). We had a cup of coffee just after sunrise and saw a couple of seiners heading north for the season. It's odd to contemplate those seiners, just passing the house now, will be in Alaska in just a couple of days.
We had a small burn pile to attend to then I rigged Mom's medical alert system and her new weather station. Jodi took Kuper for a long walk and tired him out.
By that time it was about ready to get ready for the ferry and after some good byes it was back to Friday Harbor then again south on I-5.
There are many nice things about living on the dock, not the least of which are great neighbors. We hadn't even reached the boat yet when we got into a conversation with some friends and then invited aboard for a night cap. Perfect way to end a good weekend.
Here is 40 seconds of time-lapse from the deck...
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