Beluga's excellent adventure: June 2020

It's almost officially "Summer" and days move slowly. Things are opening around us but we're staying still. This is a time of reflection and learning and understanding. A time of gratitude and happiness and sadness and disbelief.

We've taken down our bird feeder. The hummingbird feeder stays, they are polite visitors. Grackles, squirrels and chipmunks took possession of the seed feeder and chased every one else away. The chipmunks peppered the driveway with holes, the squirrels and grackles ate us out of house and home and those same grackles practiced one of their more annoying habits so enthusiastically that we had to wear shoes when walking on the dock. They nest communally, lots of them in a small area, and the adults keep themselves busy by carrying their babies poop out of the nest (in their beaks) and dropping it into the lake. That is to say if all goes well, it lands in the lake, but our grackles seem to be more intent on hitting the dock. It's a mess. No more food from us, ungrateful birds!

poop line

We have kept busy planning (with our familial architects) and laying out and building our downstairs project. We're supporting our local lumber company and turning the Jeep into a delivery vehicle.

Dave cut bathroom fixtures out of cardboard so I could better "see" the placements

up goes the first wall

Fabulous Fred helps Dave maneuver the bathtub down the deck stairs

Dave has also kept up with his list of jobs in Beluga. So far, he's replaced the toilet, and finished the leveling jack repairs. On our way home this spring, Dave noticed that the fresh water tank was leaking badly. We used bottled water until we could get home and investigate. It turns out that the tank had become loose in it's compartment and as Beluga bumped along down the road (probably that d amn I-70 in Indiana again), the movement broke the pvc drain pipe, allowing the water to pour out. All fixed now!

I'm still cooking and baking and being domestic. Rhubarb season is pretty much finished so I've turned my attentions to cookies. I've managed to replicate one of our favorite Safeway cookies (Hope's Royales) and yesterday I made a batch of an old Polish cookie recipe that we'd forgotten about!

Polish orange/coconut cookies

Niece Lisa stopped by the other day and brought us some goodies.....wine and flowers AND a huge box of Oliver's candies. Oh my, they're good. and, they're almost gone (don't judge - a friend says that covid 19 sometimes stands for the extra weight gained while staying at home).