Maintaining Sanity; Backing Away from Facebook

 Hi, friends. Some of you are much wiser than I am and have long ago backed away from Facebook. Perhaps not deleting your account, but just backing away. I find myself so stressed out lately about conversations there of all types, most of them on other people's pages, not my own. Some about politics, but others about various cultural topics. After yesterday, I just can't take the anxiety load anymore.

Part of the damage is that my anxious mind has difficulty relaxing enough to do things that I really want to do, like reading your blogs! Your nice, peaceful, happy, creative, beautiful blogs -- just the kind of social media that brings peace! Why has it taken me so long to have the courage to back away from Facebook? Well, there are people who I only see there, dear friends, family. So I'll try to check in with them, hope they will private message me. I'll still put my blog posts and watercolors there. But I have to get away from the actual text posts that go off-the-rails so fast.

Granny Marigold mentioned a youtube lady whose channel is called The Last Homely House. She's utterly delightful and creative, and makes many of the same kinds of things I like to make! Go give her a look. This morning I enjoyed watching how to hand-sew small Coptic-stitched books.

Now for a few photos of what's been happening here.

Two new baby chicks, with Henny Penny as their mama.

Four more eggs are being sat upon, but I don't think they're going to produce chicks.

Yesterday I wrapped some cured soap, tea tree bars and lavender bars.

I'll put their stickers and price tags on soon. Planning to return to the farmer's market in September when it's cooler ... if the crowds are manageable.

I've been looking at last year's autumn "Victoria" magazine for pleasure and inspiration.

Adam's still cooking yummy, healthy stuff. He must change his diet for better nutrition for his Pemphigus Vulgaris - lots of leafy greens and vegetables. He made a delicious eggplant dish called Spetzofai, on his homemade bread.

Eggplant, onion, red bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, balsamic vinegar, wine, a bit of sugar

Summer is coming to a close, and with the cooler mornings and evenings, Adam and I want to develop a habit of walking with the dogs. We drove to Oriental to one of our favorite old walks: looking at boats on the docks at a marina.

Below is the "Blue Bayou," which used to be a very fast racing boat. It's in a sad state now. I blogged about it a few years ago. We were amazed that it's still floating. Adam laughed and said he realized while walking past it that the name is a lovely word-play. As a winning racing boat, it could also be spelled, "Blew By You"!

What a sky!

The pair of catamarans below have been anchored out in the Neuse in front of Oriental for a few days. Just chillin'.

Still painting a little. For months I've tried to figure out how to add a watermark to my photos of my watercolors. Finally! -- I found I could do it on my phone! Nothing techy is ever easy for me!

I painted a few pugs. This one looks friendly!

Sunset last night:

That's it for today! I hope you all are well and safe from storms, fire, and pandemics. What a world we are in! And for Facebook friends ... I may return, probably after November, or in the New Year.

Good-bye, Nocturne!

Two days ago we were rather despairing about our boat, Nocturne. Post-hurricane, she was perched on a dock with her nose resting on another boat. $3600, paid to a local professional would have solved the problem ... if only we had that kind of money sitting around. I prayed very hard. I asked people for help and advice.

Another couple, dear friends, offered to come look at the boat yesterday. We were supposed to meet about 1:00. But they couldn't come then because of another appointment, and we waited and waited through the afternoon. Finally, we drove to the marina to meet them about 4:45. Waiting was hard, but God had His reasons.

We arrived to find our friends there, but someone else too, a 14 year old boy who's helped Adam with the boat before. He's strong, intelligent, problem-solving, careful, intuitive, tenacious, independent, and he knows about boats. Nobody else we knew could help us get that boat off that dock, but this 14 year old boy said, "Oh, no problem. I do this all the time." We agreed to meet him back there today at 5:00. He couldn't come any earlier, you know, because he's in school all day.  So here are photos of what they did. He is in the white shirt. He also brought along a friend to help. And there's a short video showing how they used a come-along to shift the boat.

The menfolk ponder the situation. He brought along his skiff with the outboard, and a small metal dingy, sitting closer to our boat his boat.

 First he had to disconnect the boom from the submerged boat.

 Nocturne would barely fit between the submerged boat's mast and the far piling.

 They attached the come-along to the cleat on the deck and inched the boat forward, making it tip over more.

 The Coast Guard had already been around, letting everyone know they were aware of the boats tossed up everywhere.

 These boys clambered from boat to boat and shifted lines and cables until they got the boat where they wanted her.

 Here's a little video of the moment when the rudder finally came off the dock! Hooray!

He also stepped down the mast.
Once the hull was off the dock, Adam's trepidation began to subside a bit, and he could watch more calmly.

 They moved the come-along many times, attaching it to different pilings to shift the boat's position.

 Nearly there!

 She's floating free! She looks so small and harmless this way -- it's hard to remember just how much heavy hull is under her.

We hope her new owner will enjoy her for many years. A Cape Dory Typhoon is a desirable boat from a rather famous designer. They sail beautifully. We got her for free, and we enjoyed her for a couple of years, and Adam particularly enjoyed the work he did on her deck and hull and wood trim. That was his favorite part of boat ownership.

If we'd gone to the marina yesterday at 1:00 as planned, we would have missed our young friend yesterday, and none of this would've happened. God wanted us there at 4:45 though. I prayed for help, and I specifically prayed for help from an unexpected source; God did that. And I can't think of anybody on the planet I'd rather have this lovely boat -- who will care for her and enjoy her fully -- that our young friend.

Oriental folks, if you need to hire a resourceful, boat-smart young man to help you, I'll link here to his dad's marina on Blackwell Point. They can put you in touch with him.

Blog Retrieval and Boat Freedom

First, friends -- when my laptop died, and I had to get all my various pages back, my Feedly (where I read your blog posts) lost my list of blogs. So I've been trying to remember all your dear blogs, and find them online, so I can enter them into my Feedly account again. I'm sure I'm missing a few! If I don't visit you for a bit, please blame my inferior memory :(

Second, I have to whine about our boat.

 Did I mention before that it was lifted, and then precariously lowered, by Hurricane Florence? I do believe that it would have slipped back into the water (and floated away into somebody's yard/house/garage/hedge), were it not for another boat, a submerged boat that you can barely see there. Our boat's nose is resting on it. That's why there are two masts sticking up -- one is our boat's, one is the other boat's.

 Our keel is resting on the dock, which it has damaged. Adam says that's about 1000 pounds of keel. He's very nervous about messing with it.

Here's the nose of our boat, resting on the boom of the other boat. I feel like just cutting away that boom! Would that help? Probably not.

If that other boat weren't there, it looks like our boat would have slipped back into the water, clearing that piling, and floated nicely. Wishful thinking!

It is causing Adam no end of distress. This boat has been a thorn in our side for nearly 4 years. We should have pulled it out of the water. We should have sold it. We were planning to ... but then the hurricane came. It's driving us crazy that it's perched on that dock, which doesn't belong to us. The marine owner would very much like it to be gone. There's absolutely nothing we can do. We cannot afford the fee for a marine crane to lift it off -- it's an amount that's out of the question. We can't find another way to get it back into the water.

So we need help. We need advice. We need ideas. We need friends who know all about boats, who might have some wacky idea, or who have seen their uncle years ago deal with such a scenario. The boat is a little under 19' long, a Cape Dory Typhoon. At this point, we care little about the boat. We care more about the marina owner, and not offending him or causing him distress. We'd love to salvage the boat, but that may be impossible. We'd gladly give the boat to anybody who could get it off the dock.

If anybody reading this has anything good to contribute, please do!

Wet Weather

Yesterday Adam and I took a morning jaunt to a favorite spot: Whittaker Creek Marina in Oriental. We used to ride our bikes there often and walk the docks, looking at boats.

Look carefully at the large photo above. See anything strange? Yep -- those are two masts sticking out of the water. A sunken boat!
Here's a closer view. It's an old wooden boat in horrible repair that used to have hoses pumping out water constantly. Well, clearly, they were no match for its rotten hull.

What a sad sight! It belongs to a local man who will (hopefully) get it out of there. I imagine he'll have to get a diver to put big inflatables inside the cabin to bring her to the surface.

At one time, someone bought her new, sailed her proudly, tended her woodwork and packed her sails neatly away. Now her stern juts above the murky water and her wheel cover hangs limp.

This particular marina dock is a somewhat sad, vaguely derelict place, although I do love it.

 Bushes grow through the boardwalk.

The slats are wobbly and a little dangerous.

The dock below is damaged, and being sailors of course they used lots of line to make is more secure.

Across the creek is another boat quite submerged. The companionway hatch is open.

But the very end of the dilapidated dock has a killer view -- look at that!

Out to the Neuse!

If anyone is interested, the Blue Bayou is still afloat although the damage to the side of her hull is worse than ever.

Today we walked down our road (a 2-lane highway) to our nearest water here in Bayboro: the north prong of the Bay River.

 The shrimp boats are strapped in, three deep, for the upcoming stormy weather. We'll be on the tip edge of Hurricane Matthew's "cone."

 Remember the Outlaw, Josey Wales?

 The little lane next to this boatyard is a Very Wet Spot, especially with the rising waters from many days of steady Northeast winds.

 All the old fishery buildings are under water or very close to it.

 The town built a nice (but small) park next to the water.

 I wish they could buy up all the property nearby and expand the park to make a real, big public water access area -- what a boon that would be to the town! But it's all wetlands, and I bet they aren't allowed to lay a finger on it.

 The lovely new bridge that spans the prong of the river took them many months to build.

 But as we walked across it, I noticed some of the cement bases for the lanterns are cracking already. That's not good.

The water is rising, and the rains are coming. We will get between 7" and 15" this weekend. We are already soggy and the rivers, creeks and ditches are full. It'll be a muddy mess before we're done.

In the January Cold

In addition to weaving, I've been doing a little of this:

People are still buying scarves. And Anna has been doing a lot of this:

She's in embroidery floss heaven! A friend sent her some cross stitch stuff. She loves it.
And Adam (Adam! Can you believe it?) has succumbed to yarn temptation. He's making a hand-knotted rug, using a Persian knot method.

 He made the frame from cedar wood scraps.

I'm wondering if his man-card is in jeopardy.
Monday night in the quite-cold, I got together with my market buddies for an evening of Mexican Train Dominoes. We all brought dinner: stuffed eggs, sausage/cheese dip with scoops, Adam's French onion soup, salad, and turtle cheesecake for dessert. I think we were more stuffed than the eggs.

How 'bout some boat shots? At Saturday's farmers' market a lady strolled around with a baby and a few rambunctious boys. Actually, the oldest teenage boy came first, carrying the baby. They'd clearly just crawled out of bed.
They are live-aboards on this lovely boat:

This stunning vessel is 64 feet long. Don't know her name (didn't want to be that nosey), but I did talk to the lady.

It's her husband's dream and passion, she said, to sail such a boat and travel with the family. They are from Alberta, Canada. No wonder they are this far south in January! They've been living aboard for 3 months. The two oldest boys are plenty big enough to help a lot, but I'll-tell-ya, that's a lot of boat to manage!

She is a beauty. Three tall masts. If they had a blog I would read it!