Im Back

I’m back! It is good to be here and hard to be away from all the excitement at work.  Kinda weird.

First a Lila story.  Ben and I came back from a short visit with my sister, Nola and hubby, Ed.  Lila was no where to be found in the boat yard and no one had seen her.  Then the next boat said he lost his cat but then found her stuck in a boat that she had crawled into. So that made Ben and I walk through the boatyard yelling, “Lila, kitty kitty, Lila kitty where are you?”  we walked out on a small tug/barge that the boatyard has.  I heard her jingle. I said, “shhh, I hear her”  Then all of a sudden we heard her meow cry meow cry loudly.  We got closer and closer to the sound.  Here was Lila soaked to the bone. (she is so skinny!)

I picked her up and she was shaking.  We think she walked over to the neighbor’s house past this fence.  On low tide you can walk over but high tide you can’t get across without getting wet. So we think she walked over and got stuck.  If only cats could talk.  Since then she has been so happy to be in the cabin with us! She is prrrr-y and cuddly!

Boat stuff…. Well our list keeps getting longer and longer not shorter! I feel good by our accomplishments. Ben is amazing at keep on going with project after project and each project is something he or I has never done before.  All new to us. Like the picture I am showing is Ben successfully hooking up our modem.  This modem will receive emails (fun for us to communicate with you-all AND weather faxes to help us with the weather forecasting.) Well that is if we can get our SSB to work. )which we found out our ground is wrong.  So hopefully that will get fixed too!

He and I were so excited to see the lights turn on the modem! It was like Christmas! Then he finished putting in the natures head today. (you know a composting toilet.) I have to admit I’m a little nervous about the whole composting toilet… like all the normal questions… where do you bring the dirt/poop? Out at sea it can go over board. What if you can’t find peat moss to make it compost? What if it stinks? What if what if…?  All good questions and answers I only know what the advertisement says. But we do know we had so much trouble last year with out head that this has to be an improvement!

We chose a natures head cuz Ben has been reading the book called Humanure and interesting read about our poop and how it should be put back in the soil.  Once it is in the soil the micro organism will “eat” up the poop and make it into the best dirt for growing and putting nutrients back into the dirt – a win-win for all.  So here we go.  Plus you all have heard our awful stories of our head not working over and over again.  I’ll keep you informed.

Our electrical is still bad… we sent out inverter (DC to AC) and it was bad. So they will send us a new one. But who wants a new one if the last one did not work. What will keep us from not having the same problem.  We just can’t get to the root of the electrical gremlin.  I hope Phil in this boat yard will be able to do it!

What have I been doing? Well working some at ASLIS work and I have been categorizing the inventory on the boat.  It is amazing what the previous owner has put on the boat. We had no idea it was all here… well we knew it was but did not know what something were for but now we are smarter and know what most things are. There are a few mysteries.  I’ll have to take pictures and you all can tell me what you think it is used for. Ha ha

I have also been doing stripping and teaking the wood.  I love teak oil instead of varnish.  Is there something I am missing? Teak oil is easy to do, no running, no mess to clean up, drys fast and is no fuss.  So I’d rather teak once a month that strip everything every 2 years. What a pain!

That is all for now.  No excitement.

Oh here is a picture of a pampered cat back home working with Anne at her desk.  How cute is Kiko the house cat. Everyone should have animals at work! Thanks Anne for taking great care of Kiko while I am gone.