Monday, August 17, 2015

A Good Day on the Chesapeake

 Sunday turned out to be a wonderful day were nothing went as expected but everything turned out for the better.  Early in the morning my son and I got up and left for a sail on the Bucentaure.  Unfortunately we really didn't sail (as in the picture - it's from another trip).  There was no wind and a sail boat without wind is just, well ummm... a very slow power boat.  So we turned back to port and decided to do a lot of maintenance wish included such glamorous duties as emptying the holding tank on the head (yuck) and a lot of minor repairs / improvements.

Three hours later we were done and went back to the house.  It was a lot of fun working with him on the boat.

 When we got back to the house it was time to mount a daring rescue operation - a humming bird was trapped in the garage and couldn't get out!  Queue the dramatic music, if you please.

Being quick thinking yet sensitive nature types we decided to capture the bird using a plastic paint cup an a piece of cardboard.  Hummingbirds are very delicate so one needs to distract them with something shiny come up from behind and place the cup over them and, finally, slide the cup over some cardboard.

 A few comic attempts and then success - the picture shows the little guy (or gal) as I was in the process of releasing.  All' well then ends well and I was sure that such courageous behavior would warrant an afternoon on the hammock.

 The Boss-Lady had other plans and I was tasked with grinding yet more tomatoes for sauces - a picture of our genuine Italian plastic food mill which is a must for making sauce.  We made another 3 gallons of tomato sauce that ended up in the freezer.  I spent 3 hours cutting and grinding those red menaces but ensure enough sauce to last the winter is a most worthy goal.  Plus there may have been a tomato peel fight with my son (we were outside so it's OK)
 There was a reward for a hard days work - my lovely, yet fierce, wife made peach ice cream.  Mmmm ... homemade peach ice cream.

A rare shot of the Boss-lady inspecting how well I did the dishes - there were more than a few that needed so "touch-up work".

Despite not being able to sail it ended up being a very fun day and yet another example of how nice the Chesapeake Bay region can be.

5 comments:

Paul O'G said...

Sometimes the nicest adventures are the unplanned ones :-)

Jason Meyers said...

Fun little story. Definitely one that, if you just skim the pictures, might get a totally different impression all together. ;-)

Stefan (aka. Monty) said...

A wonderful story that seems to recreate a wonderful day. But besides that couldn't your son create a tomato peeling robot thing? ;-)

jmilesr said...

Jason: Ha! - i wonder how tasty ground humming bird ice cream really would be?

Stefan: There was talk of trying to automate the crank using a propped up bike but then my son got distracted by the lure of throwing tomato peels at his Dad - sometimes progress gives way to fun!

DeanM said...

Great shot of the vessels in action, Miles. BTW, I had a hummingbird in my garage a while back too - it finally made it's way out. They are so small and fast. I only could track it by the sound of its wings.