Life at a Cape Cod B&B: A Cape April 2014

Wiley Irony

After we moved to the Cape, a friend of mine in Chatham who knows how much
I love snow used to call me every time we had a flurry to say, "You must have been
a very good girl." This went on for about two years before the snows started getting
more frequent. She hasn't bothered to mentioned it for the last few years because
nobody could have been that good. As I've told many people before, if I had any say
in the weather, Richmond, Virginia would have been a much snowier place in the 1950's
and '60's. But, when the weathermen started talking about a possible "Blizzard Bomb"
(their words) for the last week in March on the East Coast a week in advance, I didn't pay it
much mind. After all, I'd already had the winter of all winters that almost made up for my
snow-deprived childhood. It would seem too piggish to wish this on all the weary, winter wimps in late March. But, I must have been a very, very good girl because with hurricane force winds, the Outer Cape bore the brunt of this surprising late-March storm, coincidentally, but aptly named Wiley. Just twenty-four hours later, the sun was out, the streets were plowed, appointments were being kept
and people had stories to tell. There goes a good car wash, but oh boy, it was fun.

Better?

In the field of biology, culture is defined as the cultivation of bacteria and cells in an artificial medium containing nutrients. This definition also describes a good theatre performance. Take a heaping helping of actors, insert onstage with costumes and scenery and feed with wonderful lines and TA-DA, dramatic culture. Our Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre is very adept in mixing up wonderful concoctions of entertainment and we got our dose of culture this month with their production of Hounds of the Baskervilles. In their slapstick adaptation, three actors skillfully filled many roles, keeping us chuckling as we tried to keep up with them.

Sherlock Holmes' Hounds of the Baskervilles at W.H.A.T.

After our busy winter season, the B&B enjoyed a short lull, while people seemed to wait for a clearer transition of seasons. In the interim, Ron took the opportunity he'd been waiting for to put a spiffy, new floor down in the Studio. What a difference!

BEFORE

AFTER

There is also all the difference between early and late April. A shift between the beauty of fierce, winter starkness and the gentleness of delicate, budding color sneaks in under cover of gloomy, gray showers. Which seeds it's time to plant begins to sneak into conversations, along with reports of returning ospreys and the beginning of the herring run. Another day surprises us with the smell of ocean in the yard and the incredibly powerful sound of peepers in the nearby marshes during their brief mating season. Birdseed and suet feeders start emptying at a frantic pace as the returning redwings, orioles and grackles greedily butt in to replenish after their trips North. Wheelbarrows stacked full of brush, curls of smoke from burning leaves and people fixing fences that have blown down over the winter are common sights. Another encouraging sign is the sudden increase in production of the solar panels, cutting our bills down to levels from decades ago. I'm now on a first name basis with Andrew, the guy at Agway who loads bags of mulch into the car and a sure sign of Spring is when Ben & Jerry's reopens for the season with their annual Free Cone Day. The temperatures have stealthily reached the occasional 60's and the search for where the shorts and sandals were stored was on. Never mind that it snowed again mid-month, the day after stowing sweaters and coats and stacking up shorts and T-shirts. It was just April's last weather prank. And then, there are the tales of the garden...

When I worked at an elementary school, there was a poster in the clinic of a little kitten looking into a mirror, seeing the image of a big lion staring back. I'm sure the intention was to boost little self-esteems, but I suffer from "Lion-itis". I not only see the lion, I sometimes delude myself into thinking I am the lion, which gets me into no end of trouble when I'm gardening. This wasn't as much of a problem when I was tied to a desk eight hours a day at school, but with the freedom of self-employment, I'm creating magnificent gardens and have become my own worst enemy. Like my mother, a former Occupational Therapist, the motto of which profession is "adapt, adapt, adapt", I always gamble that I can out-think gravity and the impossible task. That strategy has not worked out so well, so rest and rehab have become a fairly intermittent part of my garden plan. So far, the new mini-leaf blower is proving to be a big back-saver and the big garden clean-up, though zombie-like, is underway. "Slowly, I go, inch by inch, step by step."

Spring in Brewster

Another small sign that we are not newbies anymore, is literally the signs along the roads of people campaigning for town offices. We actually recognize who the people are now and even have opinions about some.

The big weekend, Cape Cod way

Easter Weekend is the real beginning of the tourist influx. Out of state license plates are as common as local ones now, which sadly make fender benders a recurring common sight as well. The garden is waking up and surprising us with the bounty of prior years' labors and the snow plow is transforming back into the garden tractor. April has brought us guests from France, Montreal, NJ, the Boston area and honeymooners from Richmond, VA.