The good news around here is that the first daffodils have started to open. Crocuses have come and mostly gone, and little bits of green are showing up here and there. Then last night it snowed, with a hard freeze coming tonight. Good thing the daffodils are adapted to that sort of thing! By the end of the week it should be getting more reasonable again, up toward 60 during the day.

Last week, when it was nice, we took the cover off the boat. That was satisfying! And the snow melted away in the sun this morning, so it’s all working out just fine. It seems time for a bit of a report.

Boat tinkering has been continuing through the winter, but I had the idea that it would make sense to write about the more significant projects after they were completed and could be described fully. Of course they proceed in fits and starts, waiting for weather, or parts, or the appropriate moment in the paint shop, or their intermittent turns in the list, often involving waiting for something else to be done ahead that will make it all work out well. Progress happens, but it seems like it’s always sometime around the actual launch when they each come to their conclusion and get checked off as really done. That seems like a long time to wait for a report!

Complicating matters further, I’m back in the land of laryngitis. This interferes with writing (speech recognition on the computer) as well as with all the other ways that talking comes in handy. So for the most part I’m saving up voice for the most crucial details. But we’ve been taking pictures of projects along the way, and I’ve been thinking that it would be fun to share some of those, with minimal explanation. Pictures being worth so many words, and all!

This post is the introduction – the next ones coming up will make a beginning on the rudder repair, and on the junk rig conversion, both of which have been making significant (if gradual) headway over these last months. Maybe a few other odds and ends will find their way in also…

Happy Spring, to all in the northern hemisphere – after a seriously cold and seemingly interminable winter, those of us in the northeast US sure have earned it! And elsewhere too, I’m sure. In the southern hemisphere, I hope you’ve been having a lovely summer!

(If you’re noticing that the weather report doesn’t quite match this story, that’s because it’s being posted a day late :-)

And here’s a little of what’s been going on indoors: