This Common Sandpiper has been feeding near the shoreline in front of our house for several weeks. The level of the Sudbury River has been getting lower throughout the summer months exposing more of the river bank and creating a larger buffet area for our little visitor.

We received an offer on the River House today from a local couple and expect another from a family relocating from Piscataway, NJ. We have set a deadline of 6 PM tomorrow for “best and final” offers and will make our decision once we have all the paperwork in hand. Fingers crossed.

Jeanine and I did a little yard work today before tuning in to the Olympics. The Open House hosted yesterday by Jeanine has produced two interested parties that have expressed interest in making offers. The timing could not be better with the Tiny House being picked up on Tuesday by its new owner. We are also expecting a visit from a Concord Natural Resource Commission representative this week to confirm that we have satisfied the requirements to secure our Certificate of Compliance on the River House.

For the first time in my life, I encountered an entirely yellow spider. You would think that identification would be easy. My best guess is that it is a Yellow Crab Spider. Most odd is that I found it affixed to the driver’s side door of my car, a highly questionable location to be setting up shop.
The Yellow Crab Spider, scientifically known as Misumena vatia, is a species of crab spider found in North America and Europe. It is notable for its ability to change color to match its surroundings, primarily yellow or white, allowing it to camouflage effectively on flowers such as daisies and goldenrods. This spider’s front legs are longer and extend sideways, resembling a crab, which helps it ambush prey, typically pollinating insects like bees and butterflies. Females are larger than males, and after mating, they lay eggs and guard them until they hatch. The Yellow Crab Spider does not spin webs to catch prey but instead relies on its camouflage and agility to capture insects.

My cousin Heather arrived for an overnight visit this afternoon. The last time she was here, she said there was nothing more than a hole in the ground, so she witnessed the full transformation. She has recently taken up watercolor painting and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing her artwork. I not so subtly put in a request for one of her pieces. It was wonderful catching up on family news and comparing notes on retirement planning. We are scheduling an east coast seaboard road trip in late October and will visit with her again as we pass through North Carolina where she lives with her husband Burton.

After countless hours trying to locate a suitable wooden or stone top for our patio bistro table, I created a temporary solution using bluestone I salvaged from the foyer floor in the original River House. I took the square slab and cut it into an octagon. The results proved better than expected and might become our permanent solution. I still need to level the base and attach the stone, a project for a less uncomfortably humid day. Jeanine has been waiting patiently for a table on the patio where she can enjoy her morning coffee and do her daily writing. I suspect I will receive the final verdict tomorrow morning.

Missing from our patio is a small table where one might enjoy a morning coffee, dining with a friend, or working on a laptop. Jeanine and I selected the pictured metal base which arrived yesterday. We are still deciding on a natural stone or live-edge wood top. Our plan was for a 28″ diameter top but after making a cardboard mockup at that dimension we have decided that a 30″ or 32″ top will work better. Thus far, however, we have had little success locating a suitable candidate.

It never ceases to amaze me how many varieties of mushrooms there are. Pictured above is one I discovered at the Road House. The top half looks like a pie you might find in a fancy restaurant.

I have a low tolerance for tools that irritate me. When it comes to sucking up dust, my shop vac is among the best available. Even so, I hate using it because the power cord is a pain in the ass. There is no place to stow it on the machine and it is very inflexible. This morning, I decided to address both shortcomings. I replaced the power cord with a very pliable one and fixed a cord caddy to the side of the vacuum. One hour of work transformed this machine into one I will enjoy using for the rest of my life. While I was at it, I decided to upgrade the mobility base for my combination sanding machine. When I originally built it, I decided on two fixed caster and one pivoting caster. The arrangement worked but the base was not as stable as I would like. I decided to add an additional pivoting caster and to reposition the exisitng one. Another good investment of an hour.

Since completing her book, Jeanine no longer participates in the writer’s group of which she was a member for many years. She was thrilled to be invited to a party to celebrate the 90th birthday of one member and the 70th of another. To resolve a scheduling conflict, she offered to have the party at our house. I was evicted for the evening and decided to have dinner at a sports bar where I watched coverage of the Olympics.

Pictured below is the same group celebrating a birthday in our Mattison Dr. home back in 2017.

Kyle hosted a barbecue for Erica and Lily on the last day of their visit to Massachusetts. We enjoyed several rounds of bocce, the newly introduced Olympic sport of boyfriend lifting, and a tour of his patio project that is rapidly approaching completion. Tomorrow, they leave for Vermont where they will spend several days visiting with Jeanine’s sister, Susan.

With Maya as her coach, Lily made her first kayak excursion this evening. Within a few minutes, she looked like a duck in water. Earlier in the day, Lily and her mom were the guests of our neighbor Dave who gave them a floating tour of Fairhaven Bay aboard his small electric-powered boat. Unfortunately, the battery died and he had to row back to shore. Despite the setback, the group got to see two bald eagles during their outing.

At the request of a neighbor, I have joined a project to map the location of water chestnuts along our stretch of the river. Water chestnuts are an invasive species that grows among the water lilies that line the river banks. The originator of the project hopes to use AI to analyze aerial photos to delineate where the water chestnuts are. I offered to provide the aerial photographs. Pictured below is a low-resolution panorama of a partial segment of the river that I stitched together from several images. The map below identifies the path of my drone flight and the location where the images were captured. It remains to be seen if the goals of the project can be achieved and I will certainly report on the outcome in a future post.

Our visit to the Museum of Science today started with a showdown between Erica and one of the resident felines. I enjoyed resting in a perfect-sized chair while exploring an exhibit on perspective. The Electricity Theater was a big hit with Lily as were the interactive exhibits. I have been to the MoS many times and always look forward to discovering what’s new. On this visit, I was pleased to see an iRobot Roomba within the artificial intelligence exhibit as well as a robotic dog created by Boston Dynamics.

Erica, Jeanine’s niece, and her daughter Lily are visiting us for the next few days. Lily (just turned eleven) enjoys building things and making jewelry. I thought building a jewelry box would be fun for us to do together. Like Maya, she has an engineering-oriented brain and was quick to learn how to safely use the miter saw and table saw. Over the course of an hour, she was able to complete the box sides and apply a water-based finish to the top. We will be ready to begin assembly during our next work session.

This pair of damselflies elected to use the outside of my office window as a mating site. If not for the yummy dinner waiting for me, I would have set up my tripod and done a better job of lighting the backlit scene. I have a feeling, that this will not be the last time I get such an opportunity.