A Concord family with three children and the need for a larger home learned by word of mouth that we were about to put our house on the market. The husband and wife came for a private showing, submitted an offer the same day, and we have accepted it. Until we sign the Purchase & Sale Agreement, it is not a done deal but all indications are that we have found our buyer.

Jeanine and I put the finishing touches on our house as we prepare to put it on the market. This morning, we met with the realtors who we worked with on our new house to decide if we will list with them or sell the house ourselves.

Nights are growing colder and the leaves are just starting to turn. This is without a doubt my favorite time of year. The farmer who tends the field behind our house was busy at work, tilling the soil in preparation for the next crop.

This evening, the family gathered to celebrate my 62nd birthday even though it does not actually arrive until Tuesday. In lieu of cake, Jeanine prepared my very favorite lemon ice using the same recipe from Civitello’s, the Italian bakery of my youth located in Schenectady, NY. Served inside the lemon skins from which it was made, the treat was exquisite.

We are very pleased with the way the refinished floor in our master bedroom turned out. Having waited for the finish to completely harden, today was the first time I could start to re-furnish the room. Even though I believe I have a buyer for our bed (it is too tall for our new house) on Craig’s List, I decided to reassemble it so that I could demonstrate how to take it apart when the buyer comes to pick it up. It also allowed me to take a proper photograph of it for posterity’s sake. Jeanine and I spent the rest of the day getting the house ready to put on the market.

It is really hard to surprise Jeanine. This evening, I took her out on a mystery date. Open-air dining at Bistro 781 in Waltham where they have closed Moody St. to traffic and all the restaurants there have set up tables outdoors. As we approached on foot after parking where we could, it was no feat of detective work to determine that we were going to have dinner al fresco. As we approached the restaurant, Jeanine asked me if we would be joining good friends, Tom and Karen Metzold for dinner. How could she possibly know this? Apparently, she pattern matched the last time we dined in this area with the time of year and made the correct prediction. Even though she ruined the surprise, it did not diminish the enjoyment we had catching up with my high school wrestling partner and long time friends.

After an annealing process to relieve stress and soften the metal, we have done a first pass at machining the part my team at Digital Alloys printed last week. This is what we call a rough cut and does not include any of the final part details. Next, we will harden and temper the part to our customer’s specification and then do the final machining. Expect another update next week. This is a very exciting time at work as this part represents the first one we have ever printed for a paying customer.

This year, COVID safety concerns precluded Formlabs from enjoying Family Camp weekend normally held at Camp Taconic in the Berkshires. Instead, employees received Camp Quarantine care packages containing various goodies based on their interests. Just published in a company newsletter is the photo above in which a small group including Maya, enjoyed a local hiking outing as part of the modified camp weekend.

Shortly after moving into our current home some 17 years ago, I converted half the unfinished basement into a home theater and recreation room. During that project, we added a hydronic heating system to warm the new areas plus my shop during the winter. With all of the insulation we added, it turns out that the new boiler has rarely been called into service. When it stopped operating several years ago, there was little impetus to fix it. Now that we are preparing to move, it is important that everything in the house is working properly. While investigating the problem, I discovered that the controller board for the impeller motor had a blown chip on it (likely due to extreme overheating). What remains to be seen, is if I can order just the controller board, or if it will come with a $300 motor attached.

This year Kicks for Cancer has gone virtual due to COVID-19. Pictured above is a screengrab from a video of Nico making an appeal for the campaign. Kicks for Cancer is held in memory of Concord resident Lois Wells, who passed away in 2007 after a courageous battle with cancer. Lois was the mother of Steve Wells, the team’s assistant coach and 1999 graduate of Concord-Carlisle High School. Since its inception 13 years ago the event has raised close to a half-million dollars for cancer research.

Now that we are getting closer to putting our home on the market, we are selling off everything that will not be joining us in our new house. I picked up this elliptical machine on the side of the road a few weeks ago in the hopes I would use it in lieu of my gym membership which I canceled when COVID hit. Since then, I have used it exactly once so on to Craig’s List it went. It sold in four hours for $300. Earlier in the day, I got a proper workout when my soccer team took to the field against a Russian team from Newton. The match was scoreless until the 80th minute when we picked up our first goal. We added a second with a few minutes left in the game. A very nice win against a very strong opponent.

I decided to sub out the floor repair for our walk-in closet project since we are also going to have the carpeting in the master bedroom and a second bedroom removed, the hardwood floors sanded, and refinished. The company we hired arrived with a crew of 4 and worked from 8am to 6pm at a feverish pace. They left having completed all but the second coat of finish which they will be back to do on Monday. We are very pleased with the work and are looking forward to moving back into our bedroom once the fumes have dissipated. Pictured above is the pattern of flooring removed to blend in the new floor.

My team realized a major milestone at work today, printing for the first time, a part that will be sold to a paying customer. Our printing process is near net shape which means that we have to machine away a few millimeters from each side to reveal the part within. We will do that next week and it is a safe bet I will be posting an image of it when we do. The nickel in the photo was included for a sense of scale.

I was surprised to discover this tiny rose starting to bloom in our garden. I have always assumed that flowers only bloom in the spring. Clearly, I was mistaken. Either that or this bud is not going to open. I will report back if that is the case.

The farmer who harvested the corn crop behind our house seemingly captured every single stalk. Upon further investigation, I found one left standing and it had one remaining ear of corn. When I shucked the cobb, I discovered why the farmer had left this one behind. Most of it had been eaten by this little corn worm who had established residence within.

Starting last Friday, I began passing a kidney stone. The journey from the kidney to the bladder is the really painful part that ended late Saturday. After my soccer match on Sunday, I passed the stone, at the 9am position in the photo above, and all the smaller stones (really more like really big grains of sand with a few smallish stones) backed up behind it. In case you are wondering, these are captured with a device similar to a tea strainer. The primary stone measured 3.8mm L x 2.5mm D and was very pointy on both ends. I apologize if this is TMI, but since this is the journal of my life, I feel it is appropriate to document the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Hints of fall are in the air as are falling pine cones everywhere.

I don’t believe I have ever taken the time to really study a pine cone. They are really quite beautiful. This is a female cone. I am guessing most readers will be as surprised as I to learn that pine cones have gender. The entire subject of conifer cones is quite fascinating and I refer you to Wikipedia for further information.

Having lived in Concord for some 17 years now, there are two things I could have predicted with great certainty. First, that nothing would stand in the way of our Annual Town Meeting and second, that it would be conducted in strict compliance with COVID 19 safety regulations. What I could not have predicted is that they would use my soccer team’s home field on the day of our first league match of the season. Fortunately, we were able to gain access to an adjacent field by moving our start time up to 8 AM. Despite a lot of sleepy-looking players, we managed a nice start to the season with a 5-1 win over Hopkinton. I played for 2/3 of the match before tweaking a muscle. Nothing serious, but I thought it better to stop right away before incurring further injury.

Where’s Waldo Bonus: See if you can find me in the photo? This is far easier than the count the number of turkeys in the photo that caused so much controversy on a post last spring.

The corn crop that has been growing behind our house since the spring was harvested today. It was a three-person operation. One to drive the combine, and one each for the two trucks that make alternating runs back to the farm. If I had to guess, I would say that the farmer netted at least 20 truck fulls of corn feed. The degree of coordination between the combine and truck drivers was incredible. The entire operation was completed in less than four hours

At Digital Alloys, we print 3D metal objects from 0.89mm wire. Sometimes that wire is dirty or has developed an oxide coating rendering it difficult to use. We have a machine at work that was designed to clean wire but it is not very effective when it comes to oxides. This evening I built a quick prototype of a device that I am very confident will do the job. The wire is sandwiched between the sides of two grinding wheels (with inside labels removed). The shaft that holds the wheels has a hole in the center through which the wire passes and has a pair of lock washers that serve as springs to keep the wheels pressed against the wire (which can be seen poking out the end). Now for the fun part. The grinding wheels do not rotate. Instead, the entire assembly rotates around the wire as it is being drawn through it. On Monday, I plan to connect this creation to the flange on a hollow shaft motor we have at work to see how it functions. Total cost of parts: $28. Time to fabricate: <1 hour.

The home we are in the process of purchasing was built in 1952. Based on the blueprints we obtained today, a major addition was added in 1963 to accommodate the family’s rapidly expanding family (five children in total). Regrettably, we have not been able to obtain the plans for the original home thus far. The information they provide is extremely helpful as we plan out the renovation. Because the paper on which they were reproduced is so fragile now, l took the time to carefully photograph them for future preservation. The one drawing that is from the original house is the landscaping plan shown below.

Progress continues on our master bedroom walk-in closet project which involves connecting the previous closet to an adjacent room to make for a very spacious walk-in. Among the challenges, the original closet has a textured ceiling that will not blend very well with the smooth finish of the adjacent room. It is easier to give the textured areas a skim coat of drywall mud than it is to try and remove the texture. I am using a spackling compound that goes on pink and turns white when dry. I have been trying to put in one hour a day on the project and it is now getting closer to the end than the beginning.

Today, Jeanine and I had an opportunity to check out the Conantum community garden. Residents of our new neighborhood are welcomed to put their green thumbs to work here. I have little doubt that we will be spending time here in the years to come. In the background on the left is a baseball diamond although I suspect it is rarely used for that purpose. On the right, a meadow of wildflowers which I believe was planted to attract butterflies. Behind the meadow to the right is the entrance to a woodland trail that exits on the other end of the neighborhood close to where our new home is located. Other amenities of the neighborhood include three tennis courts and a boat launch where residents can keep their canoes and kayaks. We continue to temper our excitement about moving due to the year-long effort we are expecting for renovation.

Now that we have made good on our objective to purchase an appropriately sized home for our retirement years, we are getting more serious about selling furniture that is either too large or of the wrong style for our new residence. This will include some of the wonderful antiques we acquired when living in Indianapolis. I spent a few hours this morning working on our updated walk-in closet project and a few more in the afternoon photographing our collection of antiques which included these two pieces among many others.

Maya and her boyfriend, Bryce, drove back from Wisconsin where she spent the last week on vacation there with his family. They returned with 3-year old, Maisey, the family’s magnificent husky who will live with them for the next several months at the home they are renting with four other Olin students in Medford. Maisey and I had fun in the backyard playing fetch with a corn husk which she found extremely entertaining. Jeanine tried to curry favor by feeding her leftover salmon. It is pretty clear, that Jeanine and I will be adding a dog to our family once we have both retired.

Located 1/2 mile from our new home (situated but not visible in the lower right-hand corner of the photo above) is Fairhaven Bay. I anticipate that it will be a frequent destination for kayak outings once we have settled in. Massachusetts has 8,229 miles of river, of which less than 2% are designated as wild and scenic including 10 miles in either direction of our new house.

“A more lovely stream than this, for a mile above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth.”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne

Because it is on the way to work, I have taken to stopping in at our new house every morning to see what there is to see. Today, I found a cormorant perched on the same submerged branch as the imaginary bird from yesterday’s visit for an upgrade to the composition.

I swung by the new house on the way to my early morning soccer practice to see what kind of wildlife I might find. I encountered two blue herons, the regular assortment of turkeys, and for a moment I thought I spotted a bird perched on a partially submerged tree branch in the river. The silhouette was deceptively similar, but closer inspection revealed a non-avian composition. With the mirror-like reflection in the still water, it made for a nice photo none the less. Jeanine learned from a new neighbor that a bald eagle is often seen in our section of the river. We are both very much looking forward to our first encounter, should we be so lucky.

The full moon of September was known as the Corn Moon by some Native American cultures because it arrives at harvest time for those essential crops. It will be interesting to see if the farmer who manages the cornfield behind our house subscribes to this schedule. Because it is corn destined for animal feed, Jeanine says it will not be harvested for quite some time. There is no doubting a woman from Lebanon, Indiana in matters related to corn. Apparently the corn kernels need to dry on the cob. I plan to obey the moon and will harvest a cob tomorrow and see what it tastes like.