Will has been attending Project Oceanology Ocean Explorer camp this week. Today, Susanna and I got a chance to head out on the boat with his class and see what the camp is all about. Here are some pictures from today. I should be getting more pictures from the camp in the mail over the next couple of weeks and I’ll try to post them when I get them. We all got to pick up and inspect the creatures picked up when trawling around Ledge Light.

Susanna and I had a weekend without the boys. This was the first time in a while we have had a full weekend without the boys and without Susanna working. It was a nice change. We didn’t take full advantage of a free weekend and get away – but one of these weekends we will. We also didn’t just sit around and do house projects all weekend either.

Friday night saw us heading out for an evening with some friends. It is nice to catch up with old friends. However, I’m pretty sure I tell the same stories over and over. I’ll have to either have some more exciting trips with work (or with Susanna), or start being better at writing fiction. I guess I could stop telling old stories and listen to people. But that isn’t going to happen.

Saturday we didn’t have the most productive morning. But unproductive mornings are important. It is too tiring to have to be productive all the time. We did escape in the afternoon to a local vineyard for a wine tasting. We even had a nice discussion over a glass of wine on why we shouldn’t get a bigger sailboat.  I’ll have to keep working on that one.

Today was a chore day. I know, “chore day’ sounds terrible. But it is nice to have no major projects to work on. I mowed the yard in the morning, and when I got bored with mowing I wandered into the workshop to finish building shelves (yes, my ADHD approach to chores – mostly finish one and move on to another one).  But eventually I did finish mowing the yard.

I also finished the storage shelves in the garage somewhere in the middle of mowing the yard. There is nothing like having a ton or two of rough maple and oak to use to build utility shelving. The shelves start wide at the bottom and get narrower at the top. The slope was actually a planned feature, not just shoddy construction. These shelves are much narrower than the previous plywood and 2×4 shelving we had there before the wedding. Having shelves much deeper than 15-18” make it difficult to keep things organized. It is too easy to hide things in the back of the shelves.

After building the shelves I moved onto building a chicken coop and run…

We are looking to get 4 hens in the next couple of weeks (as soon as I have a coop and run built). The coop and run will be next to the garage and will replace the current compost bins. Construction pictures will follow as I get farther along in the project. So, for those asking, yes, I did finish enough of my other projects to start building the coop. We might even get the hens before they die of old age.

And in other good news, last week our furlough was reduced from 11 days to 6 days. This week will be my final week with a day of furlough.

I spent some time last night looking back at my old blog posts. Reviewing posts from 2 and 3 years ago. What a fright. I hate reading my own words. In addition to the obvious fact that I frequently don’t proofread my posts, it is clear that I wasn’t too comfortable writing. Hopefully over time my writing will have improved. Or at least not gotten much worse.

I read a decent amount of blogs. Okay, I don’t actually read them all always. I guess I would say that I have a bunch of blogs in my blog reader, and at times I read some of them. After reviewing my old posts, I started wondering how better writers go about writing in their blogs. What are the mechanics of writing a blog entry? I see writers that were professional journalists write several well written articles a day. And, yes, I understand that it was/is their job to write. But what are the mechanics. Do they just sit down and write? Do they make an outline and then write? Do they write and then rewrite?

This has been a busy week. This whole summer has been busy. Not crazy and stressful like last summer. But busy. I kind of feel that the summer is a bit like a water slide. I jump on at the beginning of the summer and it is a rush to the end of the slide. I have loved each week this summer, but I am also looking forward to the fall.

Susanna and I decided that, for the most part, we would not put the boys in summer camp the weeks they are here. Their last week of the summer here is the exception with Ben going to basketball camp and Will going to Project Oceanology. That has meant three weeks of family fun; although the first week was wedding week and not just family fun (but it was lots of fun).

This past week has been no exception. The boys arrived Monday morning. It takes the boys a couple of hours to land after a transition. But in the afternoon I took the boys and Will’s friend sailing. Susanna worked that night. Tuesday was no less busy. I worked and Susanna hung out with the boys. We met for lunch and she took them to the aquarium for the afternoon.

Wednesday was my furlough day. We had planned on going to Six Flags, but Ben was feeling sick. I took Will and his friend, Tyler, to the north lake and spent the afternoon watching the boys play in the water. Thursday I again worked while Susanna hung out with the boys. We met for lunch and she took the boys to a movie in the afternoon. Furlough Friday we went to Six Flags to make up for Wednesday.

Yesterday the boys had friends over (Will had Tyler and Shane; Ben had Max). I tried to get some projects done in the workshop, but mostly wound up making swords and daggers out of wood for the boys. With five boys over it is a continuous line into the workshop. Each boy constantly wanting a better sword, or bow, or dagger made from wood. But I wouldn’t trade it for an empty project day. The weeks where the boys aren’t here are too quiet and I don’t get much more done around the house.

Today we are finishing up the week with a quiet morning. The boys both wrote about their weeks on their blogs and are unwinding this morning. Later we will clean the house and maybe go sailing this afternoon. Tomorrow I head back to work for a full work week.

Now I should go proofread my writing before posting to the blog.

I took my next two furlough days this Wednesday and Friday. We had initially planned to go to Six Flags on Wednesday. However, in the morning, Ben wasn’t feeling up for a big trip out (he was fighting a cold).  Instead we took an easy morning. In the afternoon, Will and I picked up his friend, Tyler, and headed to the base to go swimming at North Lake for a couple of hours.  Ben stayed home with Susanna and rested.

Yesterday we headed to Six Flags. It wasn’t as hot as it was earlier this summer, but it was warm enough to support going to the water park for a couple of hours. We had a good day at the park, and headed home in time to catch dinner on the drive home.

Now I’m almost half-way done with the furlough. I think after next week, I switch over to taking furlough days each Friday until completed. There are rumors of the number of days being shortened to 6 or 8 total days. But of course those are just rumors.

I finally finished Moon Wind at Large, Sailing Hither and Yon by Matthew Goldman aka Constant Waterman (Breakaway Books, Halcotssvile, New York, 2012). I have been spending too many evenings watching TV or playing on my iPhone and not enough time reading.

It is way to easy to put the book down and pick up something that will deliver entertainment to me. The iPhone or TV hands me the full experience. I don’t have to work for it. A good book (and even a not so good book) makes you work for the experience.

I have started reading “Fishing in Utopia:Sweden and the Future that Disappeared” by Andrew Brown (Granta Books, London, England). It was a wedding gift from Susanna’s friends, Anni and Fia. Digging though the bookshelves I have found a couple of other books that I haven’t finished, so I should be good for a couple of more weeks. Assuming I can stay away from the electronics.

Of course, I’m playing on my computer writing in this blog instead of reading right now. But in being human, a little hypocrisy is expected; but hopefully not too much tonight, so I’ll finish up this post and turn back into my reading.

It is difficult to be forced to take extra time off in the summer. But I am suffering through the days off this week by spending time with the family. Yes, life is good. In reality, while it may suck to lose the money, at least they didn’t furlough us in the winter.

Today we had originally planned a Six Flags day. However, the forecast heat helped us decide that a day on the water was better than a day waiting in line to get in the water. So, this morning, we headed down to the boat picking up lunch at Subway on the way.

We again motored upstream. The wind is all downstream in the sound, but the boys prefer to swim in the river. And the trip downstream is much longer. We went up farther than we had on the past two occasions. Past Allyn Point in Gales Ferry on our right.  On the way past Allyn Point we passed an outcrop of rock (across the river from the factory) that looked promising to stop for a swim and lunch. The chart showed a shipwreck not too far north of the outcrop, and we decided to check out he wreck first. The boys thought it was cool to find an airplane wreck in the woods behind our house last summer, and find a shipwreck this summer.

We did find the wreck. There isn’t much left of it, though we came a little closer to some of the underwater portions of the boat than I had hoped (but we didn’t hit it – so all is well). After the sightseeing we headed south to our anchorage.  The river is warm and the current was pretty weak. The heat made it a perfect day for swimming. It is hot enough to be comfortable in and out of the water.

Susanna swam (or rather walked, the water was shallow) the cooler from the boat to the shore,and the boys explored the rock outcrop. We enjoyed lunch in the shade of some of the trees, and spent more time playing in the water after lunch.

We pulled up anchor and headed back mid-afternoon, and were home by 3pm. It was the best day out on the water to date.

Upon returning to the marina, we found that a family of swans was occupying our slip. The approach to the slip is slow, and they had plenty of time to swim out of the way, but they were not happy. It was a whole family of birds (parents and young swans), and the bigger birds didn’t like us disturbing their swim. Swans are mean birds.

I was able to improve the swim ladder by lowering it a bit, but it is still difficult for the boys to climb back in the boat (but at least now they both can climb in without assistance).  I think this weekend I will head over to Defender and look for a better boarding ladder. If we are going to spend this much time swimming, it will be well worth getting a good ladder.