It's been a long time since we posted from Jamaica. But it's been a long time - almost exactly a year - since we have been to Jamaica. Last fall we decided with heavy hearts that going to Jamaica unvaccinated with Covid still raging posed an unacceptable risk and we settled in for our first Ithaca winter in 13 years. Of course the weather decided to welcome us with some of the heaviest snows in years!

With a lot of time on our hands we tackled some long neglected projects at Whimsey Hall North. The front window in the library had extensive wood rot that needed work, and while we were at it we replaced the storm window that was showing its age.

Then as the snow flew we turned a huge pile of rough-cut oak boards into trim for the pool room.

We have never had a doorbell so we dealt with that omission.

To help minimize trips to the grocery store we started having meal kits shipped from Home Chef and Hello Fresh (we recommend both!) and Tom has actually been learning to cook! He even has tried his hand at baking!

We have spent a lot of time cleaning out stuff from our 50 year collection, making many donations to Significant Elements (Historical Ithaca's architectural salvage store) and finding things we didn't know we had. 

We have always had marginal internet service here in rural New York, but in March Tom was able to enroll in the beta test phase of the SpaceX Starlink satellite internet service. We're still waiting on the tree guys to come and take down a few big pines that interfere with the reception(and are threatening our house!), but when the dish has a clear shot at a satellite the speeds are amazing.

Dishy McFlatface

As the winter began to fade we were able to get our Covid vaccines, and decided that we now felt safe enough to finally get back to Jamaica. Better late than never! So tomorrow (April 14) we leave for a one month visit. So maybe we will be able to soon post from Jamaica again!

Oh, and at the last minute we were able to get a crew here and install a window in the end of the quilt room. It will give us much better ventilation in the summer!