Up and at ’em first thing this morning.  The tide was low and we had some submariner business to address.  Shallow submariner.

First, introduce Lina to the local oysters and clams.  That is always fun.  Teaching a new person about such things, offering them one raw for eating-on-the-spot, that sort of thing.  Old geezer-type fun, ya know?

“Aach!  I don’t think so.  Do you eat them raw, David?”  

“No.  Not really.  Only when I feel the need to assert my manhood.  Sadly, I don’t feel that way much anymore.  I prefer them cooked.  I like cuddling more, too”. (Hmmmmmm, maybe I should be eating more raw oysters, after all?)  

While Sal and Lina went on a killing spree, I raked up sea-weed for later mulching into the garden.  At this time of the year the kelp is ‘unattached’ and easily raked up.  I filled buckets and dumped them into a larger receptacle nearer the beach.  Gathered a hundredweight and heaved it up the rocks to where the high-line will haul it up to the garden area.  Not much of a story, really.  But that is what we did.

Well, the story has a smidge of drama; the Old Pudding hurt her back yesterday and her boots leaked today.  They filled, actually.  Miserable way to start the morning.  So she was being a trooper schlepping in the mud.  She just keeps on truckin’.  Maybe I saw one less smile over the work-time.  Maybe not.   

Rubber ‘wellies’ are hugely important out here and most of the ones on offer at the stores are junk.   Mind you, the ‘junk’ is cheap and lasts a year so there is always a reluctance to invest five to six times as much in something better.  I mean, at our age, are we really bothering much with investing for the future? 

Well, short term, perhaps; tomorrow’s dinner is in the bucket siphoning itself clean of sand and the oysters are milling about awaiting their fate in the same bucket of Sal’s great home-made chowder.  Man, that is gonna be good!  Clam chowder futures – the best investment we ever made. 

But all is not entirely well.  I have a wind generator and we have had a lot of wind.  I thought my batteries would be topped up.  They were not, not quite.  Went out to the shed-that-requires-brains and looked at the gauges.  The old ammeter indicated that nothing was happening.  Damn!

The windgen is spinning for all it is worth and no juice seems to be coming out.  Not good.  And that pretty much determines my schedule for the day……  I’ll get back to you on this.

………………………..and, I am back.

Seems the gauge is whacked.  The juice was flowing (so said the other gauge: the multimeter) but the gauge in the shed was sleeping.  Which gave me a thought……………….

So, I had a nap. 

It was good.  Didn’t sleep much, tho.  The gals were hard at it and banging things around but, if you are horizontal (and they are not), there is not much room for complaint so I just enjoyed what peace there was (not much) and the hour or so release from the rigours of gravity.  The way I figure it: it is gravity that kills you.  I mean, think about it….every dead person is horizontal.  Coincidence? 

I gotta say: one of my greatest pleasures living up here is being able to think.  Or, better put, having the time to just sit there and slowly think something out.  It is a real treat. 

Don’t get me wrong; little is the better for all this thinking.  If anything, less just gets done.  But I am OK with that.   Just thinking is a pleasure.

One of my neighbours confided in me last week or so that she, too, valued and enjoyed the freedom to just sit and think.  She described it as I would have.  I guess it is a country thing.  I sure don’t recall having a lot of time to think when I was in the city. 

But, of course, you knew me then and probably noticed that.