Weekending 5/15/23

 Hello and Good Morning!

How was your weekend?  Mine was simply lovely!

Look at this sweet kitty....dreaming of making the birds her friends.

See Mabel looking longingly at the birdhouse?

Do you see the wren perched right by the hole into the birdhouse?

Full disclosure:  these two pictures were taken on different days.  I caught the wren on Friday and I caught Mabel Sunday morning.  The wren goes nowhere near the house when Mabel is nearby.  That kitty has long legs and sometimes will stand on her hind legs and bat the air...trying to fly up to the house I think!  LOL

So anyway, on to the weekend adventures.  My sister-in-law volunteers on the Kalmar Nyckel - a tall ship sailing out of Delaware and she got tickets for Fletch and me to sail on Saturday!  The day dawned cloudy and a bit on the rainy side.  We could have changed our date, but we opted to keep it.  Neither Fletch nor I do well in heat or bright sun, so an overcast day is perfect for us to be on the water.  Fortunately the rain was very light.

We had to be on site by 9:30 which meant an early start from home (never knowing what the traffic would be like).  We left around 8 and ended up arriving by shortly after 9 which was no problem as there is a very nice museum on site.  The ship is a reproduction of one that sailed in 1638 and founded the colony of New Sweden.

Click to enlarge so that you can read about the present day boat.  They actually sail up to New England as well as down to Norfolk.

The boat was much more beautiful than I had imagined.

A canopy had been put up over a portion of the deck because of the rain.  It was pretty slippery (everything is varnished to a beautiful shine).

We saw some shells on the river (we were on the Christiana River) (a rowing club is nearby).

Our sail was roughly 1.5 hours on the River.  There were 4 drawbridges that had to be opened for us to go under.  On Saturday there was a crew of 31 on the boat!  That is many more than are needed to sail, but a number of them are volunteers in training.  They had some fun things for kids on board and I think everyone had a good time in spite of the drippy weather.

A close up of the front.

The bell on the ship LOL

After sailing, we took my brother and SIL to lunch at Jessop's Tavern in Old New Castle (DE).  Lots of fun shops and antique stores there, but we did not linger as we were not sure how traffic would be going home.  Traffic was fairly heavy on the backroads we chose for our trip home (the main thoroughfares were very crowded going North when we drove down to the shipyard in the morning, so we didn't want to use them).  All in all a very fun day!

Yesterday we went over to Colin & Mailing's house to check on plants and Fletch wanted to trim off some dead branches on a tree in their back yard.  We discovered that someone had been in the house!  The door from the sunroom into the living room was locked and I always leave that unlocked.  I had to call Mailing to get the code to get in the front door.  We also discovered a light had been left on.  Mailing thought maybe her Dad had been over (her Mom is still in China), but that was not the case.  And, we still don't know who mowed the front lawn (not her Dad and not the neighbor).  So...a mystery.  Just weird.  I hope they (C&M) can find out or figure out who was there.

Yesterday was also laundry day and luckily it was a gorgeous day, so everything was hung on the lines to dry.  I picked more rhubarb and made a rhubarb/blueberry crisp for dessert.  We had cold shrimp and a big salad with greens from the garden for dinner.

Now I need to dry my hair and get ready to go to the office.  Every day this week...UGH!  It's budget season - let the festivities begin!  

Here's hoping you all have better plans for your Monday!  Make it a good one.