Adventures of Day 4

Dear Ashley:

I have been very busy and have fallen behind in writing, so I will try to get you caught up with my Adventures. On Sunday in Hacks Point Maryland we did a lot of things many of which were outdoors. When I woke up, I discovered that there were a lot books, and toys to read and play with. Since Uncle Dan and Aunt Edie slept in, I got up and entertained myself. The first thing I did was to find Kermit the Frog. We visited for a while. Did you know that Frog skin is slippery? I kept sliding off of his lap.

I found a very Interesting Book, so I visited the Library down the hall and read it. I love to read! When i get home, it would be nice if we could read together. I sometimes have trouble pronouncing words and you can help me when I get stuck.

After reading for a while, I started to get hungry so I tiptoed downstairs to look for food. at the bottom of the stairs was a painting of a house on the wall. I stopped and admired it for a while. Uncle Dan told me about the house later. It was built in the early 1930's and was the original house on the lot. Uncle Dan and Aunt Edie had it knocked down and they built a new house in 2007. They loved the old house and had many great times there so they had an oil painting made of it so that they could easily remember it.

The whole Community started out as inexpensive summer cottages where the owners could come on weekends and enjoy the river and boating, fishing, and crabbing. As the area became more popular, people made the cottages bigger and prepared them for year round living.

Uncle Dan had some stories to tell about some of the early owners. One was the President of the West Chester Water Company who embezzled a lot of money. He hid out in this house at Hacks Point for a while.

I continued to head for the kitchen, and I found a small dog lying on a table. I checked him out. It turns out that the dog looks exactly like Chippy who was Uncle Dan's and Aunt Edie's second dog. Chip seemed like a nice dog. I would have rather had a real dog to play with, but it was fun anyway.

My next stop was down on the floor where Aunt Edie had a little bench with two fall decorations on it. I sat between them and took a picture so you can see how she has the house decorated for the fall season.

Uncle Dan and Aunt Edie finally woke up so we had breakfast. After breakfast, Uncle Dan and I went down to the community pier and joined in the work detail. Unfortunately I forgot to take the camera so I was not able to get any pictures of me working so I will tell you about it instead. The Bohemia River is at the very top of the Chesapeake Bay and is in an area where it gets very cold over the Winter months. It gets so cold that the river will freeze solid for several weeks. Because the river feeds into the Bay, it is affected by the changing tides. That means that the water level varies by a couple of feet between high and low tides. The change in tide height is caused by the moon's gravity and the position of the earth with respect to the moon. When the river freezes the tides still change. This means that the ice moves up and down along with the tide. When the tide comes in, The water level gets deeper, and the ice floats up higher. When the ice moves up, it has a lot of power and can do a lot of damage. Uncle Dan told me how over past Winters, the pier was heavily damaged by the ice heaving and pulling out the wooden pilings (telephone poles) causing a lot of expensive damage to the pier. If a piling is pulled up it costs $285.00 to have it driven back down. Also when the piling moves, it damages the wood attached to it. It was not unusual to have several thousand dollars damage over the Winter months.

Our project (the work detail's purpose) was to install the bubblers. Bubblers are large electric motors with a fan on them that are suspended in the water. They are controlled by a thermostat so that when the air temperature reaches 30 degrees Fahrenheit the motors turn on and spin the fans which agitates the water surface. With the water surface moving around, the water doesn't freeze or ice over. That means that when the tide changes since there is no ice around the pilings there is no damage to the pier. Mr. Dave who is the pier club President says that since they have been using the bubblers they have not had any significant pier damage. We got the bubblers installed OK.

The pier is a community pier, but they lock it up at night so that kids don't play on it and fall in the water. They had this gate made which is pretty to see and provides the protection need to keep kids safe.

After we worked on the bubblers Uncle Dan, Aunt Edie, and I worked on pulling up Uncle Dan's boat ladder. It was heavy, but we did finally get it done. Do you see that I am wearing a life jacket? I didn't want to take any chances that I might fall in and have to swim for it. I am not a very good swimmer yet so we felt it better to be safe than sorry!

Uncle Dan and I went all the way to the end of the pier and stood on the floating dock. That is where boats can tie up temporarily to load and unload passengers and cargo. It was fun on the floating dock because we could jump up and down and it would rock and carry on bouncing me all around.

Uncle Dan recently had surgery to have both of his knees replaced so he has to do a lot of exercising so we took a walk around Hacks Point. Along the way, we ran into Mr. Bob and his three dogs. It was fun playing with them. They are just my size.

Mr. Bob also has a golf cart and he let me steer it. Fore! Let's play some golf!

Our next stop was to visit the Community Hall which is undergoing some major renovations.

I helped to cut a piece of wood to size, but everyone thought that it was too dangerous for me to run a saw. I looked around and found that there was a piano in the room so I serenaded everyone with my great repertoire of music. What fun!

See me singing and playing the piano.

Later that day, we Skyped with Traci, Penelope, Scarlett and Ken. I was looking at the screen up close and Aunt Edie took a picture of me talking with Cousin Traci and Penelope. It is amazing that we could have a real time video conversation between Hacks Point, MD and Denver CO. It was fun talking with them and seeing their pretty faces as well.

We left the Point and arrived home late at night on Sunday. Uncle Dan and I got up very early because we had to go to the Dentist. I brushed my teeth extra well and we went to the Dentist's office. We met Donna at the front desk and checked in. It was so much fun playing in the basket of toothpaste and dental floss.

I was first to get my teeth cleaned. I sat in the big chair and the hygienist cleaned my teeth. I got a fluoride treatment to help prevent cavities and she used a drill with a rubber cup filled with toothpaste to clean my teeth. While she was working on me the drill tickled my gums and the roof of my mouth. Uncle Dan told me how as a kid he didn't take good care of his teeth and he had to have 8 fillings. He said that now that he is old those filling are starting to break and fall out and the teeth they are in are breaking also. He said that last year he had a big molar crack around the filling which made it very sensitive to hot and cold. The only way to fix it was to remove the tooth. Uncle Dan says that it is a lot easier to brush your teeth twice a day then it is to get 8 cavities filled and then to eventually have to have the tooth pulled. I will brush much better now to make sure I don't get cavities.

Well we are back at work and Uncle Dan has to go Consulting so I will close for now. I am having a lot of fun and am looking forward to Thanksgiving when I will meet the Newman cousins and eat turkey. Uncle Dan says that I will probably go home with Uncle Howard to Virginia to see what I can learn about that state.

Love you!

Flat Stanley

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