Still Closed

The ferry is still closed, even though the water level is certainly low enough to open. The bearings need to be replaced on both shafts. Which surprisingly is a sentence that isn't quite greek to me. But really, it just means that I need to be on board in case the mechanic needs help, and then just sit here allllll day until hopefully he finishes. This is supposed to occur today. The boss said to come to the ferry instead of the shops this morning, so I got here at 8....and.....nothing. I washed the mud off the east bank, and I'll wash off the entire deck in awhile once it warms up, but there's not an awful lot to do on a closed boat. And the mechanics haven't shown up yet. The boss had said he was hoping that the mechanic would fix it all and be done around 4:30 or 5, then we'd open the boat, or at the very least, set it up to open at 7 tomorrow morning. Somehow, this is seeming doubtful. It's evidently a massive ordeal to change the bearings and he probably won't finish today. So maybe we'll open tomorrow. Maybe. *Sigh*.

In the meanwhile, I've made a pretty amazing discovery. When they built the new ferry ramps and tower, they took down an osprey nest on top of the tower that'd been there for a really long time. And since ospreys nest in the same place for life, they replaced it with a small tower, a telephone pole, with a platform on top. It's not as tall as the new ferry tower, and all last year, they were trying to use the tower, so someone (not me!) had to climb up there every few weeks and knock off all the nest materials. As far as I know, they never really used the new tower. Well, they are now! The new tower is probably 30 feet from where I'm sitting right now on the east ramp. When I look up there right at this moment, I can see the head of one osprey sticking over the platform edge. I'm not sure if it's mate is in there, or out looking for food. I don't know if they've laid eggs yet. When I got here this morning, one osprey was perched on the edge of the nest, and they other flew down and perched on it's back. Maybe they're trying to mate? It's really incredible to watch. Their whistles are loud, and while I'm sitting here, something moves in the corner of my eye and it's an osprey, swooping low, coming in to land in the nest. Ohh! I see both of their heads now. :) I tried to put a photo in here, but blogger on my ipad isn't cooperating today. I will, soon.

Not much else is going on. I feel like I've actually managed to accomplish quite a bit while I've been in the shops. I created new time sheets, and wrote a 17 page manual on how to fill one out, and how to get the proper codes and everything. Some of it was mind-numbing, but overall, I really accomplished something. Now if we could only get everyone to start filling it out.... I also made a ton of edits to a different manual, formatted the heck out of it, and printed it up. So things really got finished this time around in the shops. It felt good.

At the badgering and cajoling of a coworker and friend (Tami, I'm shaking my fist at you!!), I combined two recent blog posts about nature, and submitted it to the county's public works employee newsletter. I had an entire page. Within 5 minutes of the newsletter being emailed to all PW emplyees, I was getting phone calls congratulating me, telling me I'm a great writer. It's so flattering! I like writing the blog, and I feel like I'm getting better and better at presenting myself, but to hear it from others, people I barely knew, was really wonderful. And now, family and coworkers are starting to push me to submit something to the local newspaper. Maybe a once a month human interest column? It's a lot to think about. If I do go that route, I'll have to think a lot about privacy. I do my best in my blog to not say cruel or mean things about coworkers, but sometimes I do. If my blog name went public, I'd probably go back and edit almost every one of my posts. Which I don't really want to do. I don't want to change the blog, or stop blogging, or move the blog or anything. It's a lot to think about, but it's also exciting to think about really publishing.

The mechanics still aren't here.... I guess I'll keep knitting!