A few weeks ago, we had a pretty violent thunderstorm roll through our area. I don’t remember where Jen was, but I had Hazel hooched up on me like a tick on a deer as I did some budgeting and watched the trees blow sideways out the window. It wound up being more bluster than precipitation, but the sky did get that weird green color that means “Git in the storm cellar, Dorothy!”
Anyhow, a week later I was in the driveway when my neighbor walked over and told me one of the limbs from a silver maple in the back corner of our lots had fallen on her garage and knocked out her power. This tree was next to a pole holding a transformer that used to explode regularly during windstorms; after fifteen years and a final eruption of green fire and carcinogenic PCBs, BG&E finally sent a crew out to update the unit and it’s been pretty solid ever since.
The tree was almost directly in the middle of where three lots come together, as far as I can tell, but I’ve been the one maintaining it, and I had several branches over our yard pruned a few years ago. I felt bad about the neighbors’ power, and the only main branch remaining hung low and threatening over their garage, so I offered to have it cut down. Silver maples are ugly, dirty trees which grow fast and drop shit everywhere, and this one was choking the light off our greenhouse, so I’m not that upset to see it go—but the number of shade trees on our lot has been reduced dramatically over the years.
They found a service who offered to do it for half of the next lowest bid I found, so we made out OK, but I wasn’t prepared for that surprise bill. I can think of several other things I would liked to have spent that money on.
Jen found us a fun thing to do on Sunday morning: the tiny cemetery in Baltimore City famous for being where Edgar Allen Poe is buried also has a catacombs that’s open for tours. Many, many years ago, my friends and I walked downtown late at night and jumped the fence into the cemetery on the anniversary of Poe’s death. In those days that part of town was Not Safe, and nothing we said would dissuade the girls we were dating, whose idea this was. We didn’t run into any trouble, and everyone had a good time, but the graveyard felt very unfamiliar this time around.
At one time in the early 1800’s this cemetery was at the edge of the city, and most of the prominent members of Baltimore society were buried there. As the city expanded, the trustees decided to build a church up and over a number of the graves to make sure the cemetery did not get sold and developed. We learned a bunch more about early Baltimore history, including the fact that a man named Cumberland Dugan was a prosperous city father, and that the pier where the current National Aquarium sits was originally called Dugan’s Wharf.
Leaving the cemetery, I resolved to learn more about early Baltimore history (Fun fact: Patterson Park, two blocks north of my first house, was the site of Hampstead Hill, the main defensive fortification built to stop the British from burning the city) and do some digging into the Dugan family history, most of which we lost when my Dad passed. I will admit, visiting his and my grandparents’ gravesites a week ago did set this idea in my mind. I know Dad shared his information with my cousin Brad, who will be my next contact to see how far back they went. A cursory web search claims my namesake great-grandfather was actually born in Indiana, which was a big shock to me—but sounds kind of suss.
Finn and I are back from a week visit in Upstate New York, where we were able to get a bunch of chores squared away for my Mom, visit my Dad and grandparents as well as some of my cousins, and eat lots of good food. It’s the first time I’ve been to the old house in Aurora in a while, and years since I visited the Wells golf course, which is now being run by my cousin and looks about a billion times better.
Now, it’s back to the salt mines.
Happy Birthday, blondie. I love you!
I took the girls out for a pre-birthday brunch on Sunday at a place called, unfortunately, Bunny’s Buckets & Bubbles, a southern comfort food place now installed in the dear departed Wharf Rat in Fell’s Point. The food was very good, the drinks were strong, and we ate enough that we went home and didn’t eat for the rest of the day.
I was using my old MacBook Air as a travel machine for a while, leaving the big new one on my desk as a dedicated video editing machine, and I found it to be super-handy. Not worrying as much about bringing my primary laptop out to the dirty garage, for example, was liberating. About a month ago I threw the travel laptop in my bag, not realizing one of Hazel’s travel water bottles was also inside, and that it was leaking from the lid. Before I knew it, about 1/4 cup of water had leaked onto the laptop, and when I noticed it, I immediately shut it down and tipped it up to drain out for a couple of days. Carefully booting it back up, I was happy to hear the startup chime and see the screen come up, but the trackpad and keyboard refused to work.
Annoyed, I followed the disassembly directions on iFixit and pulled the trackpad assembly out to find corroded circuitry at the base, where the trackpad/keyboard ribbon connect to the main controller board. Pulling the bottom cover off with the required force to disconnect a bunch of clips, I wound up cutting into the ribbon at one of the 90˚ bends (d’oh!) but was able to get the trackpad assembly out with no problem. iFixit had the trackpad I need in stock, but the ribbon is not. I ordered the trackpad and put myself on the notification list for the ribbon. I’m hoping water did not find its way further inside and onto the logic board—but I figure the fact that it boots up with no problem means I’m in the clear there.
It’s been pretty quiet around here for the past couple of weeks. I’ve had my head down, working on projects for the 9-5 gig, and it’s been too goddamn hot to be outside doing much of anything. The dog is going mental because for various reasons she didn’t get a morning walk for most of last week. Friday morning we did go out for coffee, and when we left the house it was cool and slightly breezy, but Canada was thick in the air and the acrid taste of it was thick in the back of my throat. By the time we turned for home it was already hot, and we made it in the door just as the humidity really ramped up.
Jen and I did spend some time after dinner looking over the tomato situation by the greenhouse. Finley spent a couple of days weeding and cleaning it out last week, and apart from the usual clutter of pots and garden stuff, it’s really nice to be in there with thriving plants again. (Full disclosure: I’m also using it to store truck parts). Jen has four plants in the planters outside, where the day lilies used to be, and I’ve got six in containers inside. My plants all grew and fruited quickly, but my heirlooms developed blossom end rot from uneven watering. Her plants outside have gone bonkers—she has a cherry plant that is absolutely covered in fruit, and her heirlooms are heavy with big healthy, meaty tomatoes. We spent some time trimming, fastening branches to cages and poles, and fertilizing. As I was pulling dead leaves off my group, I noticed a strange object high on one of the plants—and realized it was a tomato hornworm, busily munching away. I pulled three more off, and Jen found one—her plants are also being nibbled on by deer, so we have to keep an eye on things daily to make sure we’re on top of the pests.
We bought and planted a peach tree on the other side of the yard last fall, and it seems to be very happy there. In the spring it blossomed and fruited very quickly, but Jen read that we should pull them off and trim the tree back in the first year to help it get stronger, so regretfully we pulled all but about four off the branches. They got pink and fuzzy, and Jen was getting excited to harvest—until they disappeared one morning. When we planted the tree, I installed six-foot deer netting around it to prevent them from eating the leaves, but somehow something got in there and stole the fruit. Our yard is a rest stop on the highway the deer use to get to and from the park, so I’m not surprised, but we’re going to have to step up our game.
As the years have gone by, I’ve taken fewer and fewer pictures of the Catonsville parade, but I do still pick up the phone to shoot interesting things.
This year, the weather was so hot (“feels like 112˚”) there were probably 1/3 of the usual participants in the parade, and 1/2 the people normally watching. It was just miserable outside. As usual, we spent the day before preparing for it through the heat, and I was outside from about 8AM until 1:15 getting everything set up before I could run upstairs for a shower. Jen’s sister and her family were with us, and it was a low-key day, but it still took everything out of me.
As this beautiful shoebox Ford drove past, one of many classic cars, I commented to my sister-in-law that it was the one I’d want in my driveway out of all the others present. About 20 minutes later, a man tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could charge his jump box from one of my outlets: it was Larry, the driver of the Ford, who told me the car had sputtered to a halt one house past ours, as the generator wasn’t charging the battery. I got him an extension cord and some water, and we stood in the shade while it started charging the box. Turns out Larry knew me from my trucks and figured I’d be the guy to ask; I didn’t recognize him because he wasn’t driving his sick blue T-bucket hot rod, which he normally has at Cars & Coffee. As I mentioned earlier, the parade ended early, so we walked up the street and were aided by four firemen who helped push the car back and into our driveway, where it cooled off under the tulip tree.
Once the jump pack was ready, I threw my tow straps into the Scout and followed Larry back to his house, where he tucked it into the garage. Along the way we saw another of the antique cars from the parade dead on the side of the road; I think it would be a huge gamble to take my trucks through a parade on such a hot day.
I think the only time any of us were outside was during the parade and its aftermath—it was just too hot to be outside. Our guests left at about 9:30, after a passing thunderstorm cooled things off a bit, and we all collapsed into bed. I had to tackle Hazel while the local pyromaniacs lit off fireworks until 11:30, and then we were able to go to sleep.
Jen has been quietly doing A Thing for the last four years, and it has been growing steadily in size and scope. She got involved collecting food donations for local elementary schools so that kids would have meals over the summer break; a little-known fact is that here in the US roughly 15% of school-age kids experience food insecurity. She started putting the word out and collecting donations at the church across the street, and last year we wound up with a half a ton of food stored on our front porch. She and another friend then divided our dining room in half to split the food out equally, and they dropped it off a few weeks before the end of the school year.
This year, she was able to double the amount of food collected; carefully organizing, weighing and storing the donations by category, she wound up with a literal ton of food. Realizing she couldn’t split it all out by herself, she organized a volunteer effort on Saturday morning to divide, repackage, and move it into vehicles for delivery Monday morning.
One of the deliveries filled every available inch of the Scout. The other delivery was split between three normal cars, because a quarter-ton of food made the springs in the CR-V sag to the bump stops.
We are all exhausted from the logistics, planning, execution, and delivery, but I couldn’t be prouder of Jen and the work she put into this. And please, donate to a food pantry near you if at all possible; kids can’t learn or study when they’re hungry.
The temperature has been bouncing up and down for the last couple of months, but now that everything is green again we’re well into yard sale season. It’s been pretty slim pickings around here for the last five years or so. I think that a lot of the older families cleaned out and moved on when Finn was a toddler, which spoiled me for variety—walking through the sales with her in the backpack I was always able to drag home good toys, clothes, tools, and other excellent finds. I don’t recall being able to find much of anything last year, and the opening sales this year were just as meager: lots of glassware and kids’ clothes but not much else.
I wrote about my Boy Scouts finds a few weeks ago, and yesterday I hit a community yard sale a little north of here. Within a couple of minutes I scored a free(!) steel wheelbarrow from a couple who’d just sold their house and were looking to get rid of stuff. I’ve repaired our plastic wheelbarrow twice now and it’s on its last legs, so I can make one good solid unit out of two easily. Up the street I found a brand new portable Manfrotto tripod, which will replace my larger travel tripods, and a set of stainless steel restaurant steam pans. Those are great for car fluids of different kinds. As usual there were a lot of clothes and glassware, but I was happy with the stuff I found, and Hazel snoozed patiently in the passenger seat while I walked around.
My tomatoes are going nuts in the greenhouse, which is a pleasant surprise. All I did was mix some new soil in with the old stuff left over from a couple of years ago, add Tomato-Tone, and drop the plants in. Each one is growing fast, they’ve all started flowering, and three of the four have set fruit as a result of my hand-pollinating. It’s all I can do to keep myself from buying more plants to put out there, but after reading that tomato prices are supposed to spike upward, I’m second-guessing my hesitance.
Meanwhile, the peach tree I bought Jen last fall is covered in fruit, which is a great sign. We planted it on the top of the hill at the west side of the backyard and surrounded it in deer fence over the winter. It came back bigger and greener, and our nightly visitors haven’t been able to nibble on it, which means it’s going to grow big and strong, and my girl will have fresh peaches to make her happy.
Later in the day I dusted off my black suit and got myself churched up for a trip into DC with the family: my sister-in-law’s PhD hooding ceremony was scheduled for the same day as the Pimlico horse race and a Nationals/Orioles game along with about twenty other graduation events, so traffic was heavy. We got there just in time for the start of the event, and met up with the family at a Fogo de Chau to eat lots of delicious meat until we were all stuffed.
The weather forecast was supposed to be much different than what we got this weekend, which put a bit of the kibosh on my outdoor plans, but I was able to get some things accomplished.
Saturday morning the Boy Scouts were having their yearly yard sale at the church down the street, so I bundled Hazel into Darth Haul and we puttered down to check things out. I made a beeline to a stand where a family was getting rid of multiple bins of assorted tools, and spent a half an hour digging for treasure. I wound up walking away with a decent replacement toolbox for my electrical kit, which I’ve outgrown (and which never really closed securely), and filled the top section with a wide assortment of hand tools. I’ve found you can never have enough US-made screwdrivers, 1/2″ and 9/16″ wrenches, tape measures, and pliers, and I added some unique things like hose cutters, a bag of hemostats, and some specialty wirecutters and dikes, among other things.
Returning home, I picked Finley up and drove to the Baltimore waterfront near my first house, where a very unique ship has been docked for years: the NS Savannah, one of only four nuclear-powered cargo ships ever built. In the 1950’s, President Eisenhower launched the Atoms for Peace initiative, to show the world how nuclear power could be used for the advancement of man. the Savannah was one of the projects developed under that program, and was launched in 1959 as a combined passenger/cargo vessel to showcase America’s command of industry and science. In person, it’s huge, but compared to a modern container ship it’s a plastic bath toy. Designed before the advent of container shipping, it’s long and sleek and looks like an early 60’s sportscar.
Inside, we came aboard at the original passenger embarkation point, which had been restored to its original design. Descending down into the ship, the tour took us through the now decomissioned nuclear containment vessel, through the engine room, to the main control room, and back up to the passenger cabins.
The cabin we toured was actually pretty small and not that inspiring, if I’m honest; I would have expected something a lot more spacious and elegant. Most of the original furniture was gone, but they’ve done a good job of sourcing as much period-correct stuff as possible.
The Savannah will be decertified as a nuclear power facility this year, and her future is uncertain; none of the docents know what’s next for the ship or how long she might stay in Baltimore. So I was glad to be able to check it out while we did, and take Finn along with me.
On Sunday I did some work around the house and countersunk a set of rear seatbelt mounts into the Travelall before driving out to Frederick to pick up a used Mirra desk chair from an estate showroom. This was to finally replace a disintegrating 18-year-old IKEA chair that’s been giving me a sore butt for a year or so now. New Mirras go for stupid money, so I was happy to score this one for a fraction of the price, and I think it’ll last a good long time.
Then I headed up to a Travelall aquaintance’s house north of Frederick to look over a truck he’s selling—not for me, but for another fellow Travelall owner I met through the YouTube channel. I shot some video and caught up with the seller before heading home to buff the paint on the hood of the truck, and when it got dark, headed inside to edit video.