Bean Reports from The Beach
At the beginning of the week there was an invasion of big machines that shook the house. The progress on the path that goes by the house on the golf course side continues. The cement has been poured and soon the landscaping will be done. In the meantime, no golfers go by so it has been pretty quiet from that perspective. Therefore, our exercise has been increasingly on the beach. The challenge has been coordinating the beach walks with the tides as right now, because of the full moon, the King Tides have been super high. High tide = little or no beach therefore no walk.
We only missed two days at the beach, one was Thanksgiving Day because the humans played golf and the other was Friday because the weather was awful so the humans went to the movies. Margot and Hadley, Brewer’s family, went to Boston for the weekend so no one was around to take the pups for a walk. Boring!
Thanksgiving Dinner
We made the stuffing from last week’s recipe and it was absolutely delicious. Well worth the effort to put it all together. In addition we did a turkey that had wonderful herbs and quite a citrus component with lemons and limes around it. Fresh herbs really do make a difference.
Many cooks in the house made life easy. Margot and Libby made the pies. One day it was apple and the next day it was pumpkin. Both were delicious and made the house smell very much like Thanksgiving time. Katie and Lulu made the stuffing and Katie took care of doctoring up the turkey. Margot and Hadley did the cranberry sauce. Hadley made the brussels sprouts and John made the peas. Jack helped with the tables and did a lot of the cleaning up.
The turkey with all the trimmings and the table before dinner.
It was fun to set the table with some of my favorite china and Thanksgiving decorations. We had our good friends Pam and Ed with us for dinner and Pam provided the most delightful appetizers including kale chips, hummus and miniature tomatoes, basil and mozarella cheese on toothpicks. Of course there was lots of wine and water! We ate well, laughed a lot, enjoyed each others company and declared it the best Thanksgiving ever which I think we do every year. It had been two years since we had Thanksgiving together so it was special fun.
We also had the annual Lincoln Trophy golf tournament during the day. We started this about 10 years ago with good friends from Hartford who came and spent Thanksgiving with us here on Dataw. They couldn’t make it this year but we had the tournament anyway. The winners with 29 points were Margot, Hadley, Libby and Jack. The runners up with 24 points, Lulu, John and Katie. It was the birdie on the 9th hole that scored the winner as that team netted a two on the hole for 5 points. Lots of laughs and big smiles around. We missed you Lincolns so come back again soon.
Fireside Chats
The weather was the perfect temperature to be outside and sit around the fire pit. It was cool enough that the bugs didn’t bother us but warm enough that we could sit there and be comfortable. No wind helped too. Not sure what Margot is pointing out to us but it must be important as we are concentrating on what she is saying.
The tides being so high we never really knew what we would find out at the beach when we got there. These wonderful pools greeted us on one recent trip. Libby and the three dogs headed out to a little spit of the sand bar and I loved the light reflecting off the sand with their silhouette against the sky and the ocean. I really wish we had a tracker on the dogs to see exactly how far they run when we are out there. We walk three miles or more but they easily go three times that. Brewer in particular because he loves to chase a ball that has been thrown with the chuck it. He does this for hours. Wyke and Bean just play and splash in the water and when the opportunity arises they greet every other dog on the beach as their long lost friend.
Cat Impressions of Guest Dogs
Our cats are very used to dogs and don’t seem to mind too much when a strange one comes into their home. They are usually curious and don’t act in a way to make the new dog feel it is necessary to chase them. They spend a lot of time just observing. As mentioned before, one of our kittens is nicknamed Cleo The Cheshire Cat – you might be able to tell why from this picture. Today she tried to smell Brewer ( Margot and Hadley’s pup) and he yelped like he had been bitten. Now she is back keeping an eye on him from above. Really, they all got along beautifully which is saying something when you have three dogs, two cats, and five humans in one house.
A sad note to end this Thanksgiving Update. John’s cousin, Alan Moses, died on Friday morning. He was taken ill at the beginning of the week and died peacefully with his wife of 63 years, Joanne and his son Bill and good friend Fiona by his side. Alan was the closest thing to a brother that John had in his life. It was because of Alan and Joanne that we found Dataw and that we decided to spend our retirement here. We have so many very happy memories including the first time we played golf on Dataw. Alan was so excited to show us the golf course that we set out to play 18 holes that ended with us using the golf cart head lights to see where we were going by the time we got to 18. We were not going to quit just because it was dark. Alan will be very much missed by all the members of this Moses family.
