Laundry, Screen Doors, & A Funeral

We've reached another milestone! Scott got the washer & dryer hooked up and I did my first load of machine wash last week! ... no more hand washing my clothes!

It was a lot of work for him, but he's done a great job of it. He had to run new wiring for it... from the large transformers in the basement, which meant drilling through the concrete walls. Since they are outside (in the carport), he also built a cabinet to protect them somewhat. I'm planning to stencil some green lizards on it... but first I have to make the stencil. It looks great & I'm SOOOO happy about it!

He also just finished building a set of double screen doors for the front veranda. There's a wonderful breeze that comes in those doors, but we don't usually have them open because of the bugs. We just hung the doors this past weekend and it's really nice to be able to enjoy the great breeze... as a matter of fact it's a bit too windy today to have them open! Now we can work on refinishing the glass doors.

I've been doing a few smaller jobs inside... like sanding & painting the door frames. (I know... it's not much compared to what Scott's been getting done!) I've also been doing a few small sewing repair jobs. And I've used some of this free time to work on some of my Grenada photographs.

We attended the funeral for our neighbor last week. His wife asked if we could give a few friends a lift to the church... so we were happy to help. We wondered if funerals here are different than in the states? The service was held at a church on Grand Anse Beach and started at 2:00 (but "tributes" would begin at 1:00). We arrived with 2 women from the neighborhood around 12:45. A few people got up & spoke about him and his life, then a local priest began the catholic service. We sang hymns, and they took a collection for the repair of hurricane damaged churches. There were a number of "influential" people there, and we learned so much about the deceased. He was quite a "gentle"-man, and we wish we would have gotten to know him better. Then around 4:00 we drove back here to St. Paul's for the burial. (The cemetery is just over the hill behind us.) At the cemetery, we noticed the hand-dug grave was somewhat shallow... there are no concrete vaults used. When the hearse arrived, the pallbearers removed the casket, and with a few heavy straps, lowered it directly into the grave. While everyone sang about a half-dozen hymns, the gravediggers then filled in the grave & very carefully mounded the dirt on top. All the flowers were then placed atop the mound, and then people slowly left... many going back to the family's home for a meal. A few days later I visited with his wife and took along a home-made shoo-fly pie. (Grenadians don't know what that is!) She's a very nice woman with whom I hope to become better friends. R.I.P... Dr. Alan St. Bernard

We finally have been harvesting tomatoes from our vines... but already, it's over! We really only got one crop from each of the 3 plants that survived this far. And then the tomatoes were pretty small. Not at all like back home! I still have plenty of seeds left to plant, but I'm wondering if it's worth the effort. I planted the seeds for these back at the end of October! (But I think it was February till they were big enough to put in the ground.) Maybe we'll try again one more time to see of the time of year makes a difference?

Well, I'm sorry it took so long for an update, but I was waiting to get photos of the projects! We went to another hash this past Saturday and I have another exciting to story to tell from that! ... stay tuned!