Author: Pat D

I have been experimenting with steel wool photography with GMG Jimmy as my ‘model’. It involves igniting encased fine grade steel wool  (we use a kitchen whisk); spinning it; then taking the pictures with a slow shutter speed in order to create the effects you see below.  We select a safe location: in these pictures Jim is standing on a wide area of  damp pavement. It’s not as “sparky” as it might appear due to the slow shutter speed. Although I still need practice, I thought the pictures are very interesting. And, yes, we come prepared with a bucket of water just in case….. also helpful is his Cape Pond Ice hoodie.

The Whoo(pie) Wagon of Topsfield announces it will be at Cruiseport ( 6 Rowe Sq. Gloucester) Sunday June 14 from 5-7 PM. Orders must be placed in advance and before noon on Sunday. This sounds like fun! We saw this food truck recently near Topsfield and were pretty intrigued. It’s like they heard us talking in the car about them………

From their Facebook page:

We are heading back to Cruiseport!

• Order before 12pm Sunday June 14th

• All orders must be placed in advance

• No contact transaction

• To ensure social distancing,
PICK UP WILL BE ALPHABETICAL BY LAST NAME
• 5:00-5:30 A-G
• 5:30-6:00 H-N
• 6:00-6:30 O-V
• 6:30-7:00 Q-Z

• Place order on the link below and ENJOY!

Whoopie Wagon Order link here.

Image borrowed from their Facebook Event sight because it looks so darn good!

As promised, the city playgrounds opened up this week. So nice to see children enjoying the playground at Stage Fort Park on Wednesday this week. Maybe we are getting back to something close to normal.

Second Glance has announced reopening plans for June 24 at 9 AM. This is welcome news. Hope to see you there. They are located at 2 Pond Road and you can keep up with their plans on Facebook.

From their Facebook page:

We’ve worked hard to clean, organize and reorient the space for your safety. Lots of new things including a NEW Donation Center by APPOINTMENT ONLY! Schedule your time now at FOODPANTRY.org.

Shopping hours: Wed-Sat | 9am-5pm
Donation Hours: Tue-Sat | 10am-4pm

All shoppers and donors must wear a mask, sanitize hands, and maintain a safe, 6 foot distance from others. We must limit occupancy to 40% capacity, so you may have to wait to be admitted.

We are so excited to see so many restaurants opening back up! Capt. Carlo’s deck is one of our favorite outdoor spots, so we made our lunch reservation online as requested to be among their first return customers of the season. We messaged them on Facebook so the online reservation and confirmation were easy and painless. Here’s the link.  Or you can call 978-283-6342.

You are requested to mask up enter by the back deck area and be ready to place your order prior to seating. I believe this is to limit contact and provide efficient service while obeying new protocols and procedures.  I suggest you think ahead about your seating location if you are given a choice since the weather can vary. You are not encouraged to change your seat due to sanitizing measures but you can be accommodated if needed.

Their system is to use table signs to signal the need for the server, again I believe to limit contact unless necessary.  That seemed to work well for us. In fact, we used the sign to hold down items blowing in the breeze and almost immediately a server appeared! Yikes. New procedures will take time for us all to get used to.

We ordered Lobster BLT and Buffalo Chicken Wrap which were delicious as always! So happy to sit with a drink and our meal as the deck filled up with families, couples, friends all eager for lunch and socialization. Thank you to all the restaurant staff working so hard to make these new rules work for the safety and enjoyment of us all.

Finally, some of the retail stores have been able to reopen; not necessarily for “business as usual”, but rather under changed procedures and protocols.  It was a wonderful feeling to stroll down Main Street today and see open doors. Some such as Mermaid Tales, New England Sweats, Design of Mine are open now. Others are planning to open soon: Larsen’s on Tuesday (today) and the Brass Monkey tomorrow (Wednesday). Store staff seemed genuinely pleased to see us and the stores felt safe for a little browsing. Welcome back all!

Yesterday Monday June 8,  the Mayor shared some details about Step One in Phase 2 which you can read in full here.  Here is a summary of some of the highlights:

Restaurants may offer outdoor seating; retails stores may open with restricted in-store capacity; golf pro shops and other onsite facilities may open; health care professionals may offer expanded services; lodging is now available; outdoor recreation facilities will be open.  All of these have certain required protocols and restrictions that must be followed.

The “big” news (in my opinion) is the following as copied from the Mayor’s announcement:

City playgrounds will be open to the public by the end of this week. Play structures are not cleaned or disinfected so although available residents should use at their own risk. Please remain diligent about hand washing and/or sanitizing before and after playground use.

Also copied from yesterday’s announcement:

Good Harbor and Wingaersheek Beaches are now both open to residents and a limited number of non-residents, at a reduced capacity. Stage Fort Park remains open to the public.

There will be a Step Two for Phase 2 which will roll out at an unspecified future date. This step will allow indoor restaurant seating as well as the opening of massage parlors, nail salons, tattoo parlors and tanning salons.  Stay tuned for further details on these advances in Phase 2.

It’s an exciting time to tip toe back into the world we once knew. But we do need to remember these new procedures are new to all of us, including servers, cashiers, sales staff, health care professionals…all of us….so extra patience and understanding is critical.

And now, a view from the Beauport Hotel deck yesterday taken during the podcast as the hotel staff was preparing to open the deck for dining. We stayed for lunch and it was fantastic!

To follow up on yesterday’s post about eagles and other larger birds at Mystic Lakes State Park, I wanted to share the adventures of the more common grackles and gulls hunting the herring as they come over the dam between the Upper Lake and Lower Lake…… it was quite the show and easily distracted me while I awaited the eagles. The herring were plentiful, as were their predators. The grackles attacked these fish nearly their size with their beaks and talons pecking and poking away to get their satisfaction for lunch. The bigger gulls of course fled with the herring in their beaks as they were chased by their hungry companion gulls, often losing their prizes in flight.  A great side show while the bigger birds were resting!

Brief details on how establishments and services will be allowed to operate in Phase 2 in Massachusetts starting tomorrow Monday June 8.  Further details available in this Boston Globe article

Retail stores can open for browsing! (with restrictions in place)

Restaurants can open with outdoor dining! (with restrictions in place)

Organized sport can resume! (with restrictions in place)

Car dealerships, funeral homes, child care, health care, lodgings and home improvements can resume their work (and you know what I’m going to say here, right?….with restrictions in place)

Everyone will take the steps back to normal to their individual comfort levels…..hoping to see you all soon. Full details here from Mass.gov.

I’m not embarrassed to admit I am somewhat addicted to eagles so I actively seek them out. It’s hard not to love those majestic birds and often I am asked where and how do I find them.  I am sharing the secret with you here today.  A great place to go for watching birds is Mystic Lake State Park in Medford. From Gloucester it’s about a 50 minute ride. Yes, I realize that’s off-island but if you want to see eagles, most of the time you have to go to them…..they aren’t coming to you…….

It’s a lovely area at the lower part of the lake near the dam and there’s plenty of free parking.  Although it seems to be popular for fishing, boating and other water activities it’s been very manageable in terms of crowds so I highly recommend a trip if you want to bird watch, especially for eagles. The eagles have nested lakeside so you are almost guaranteed a sighting. We have also seen swans, blue herons, ospreys, black crowned herons. Here’s a sample of what we have seen recently:

We enjoyed 2 separate sightings with a pair of whales in one area and 3 playful whales in the other area. There was even a full breach!!!! None of us was quick enough to get it on camera, but we got to see that as well as another “nose” breach.  It was a private 4 hour trip which cost a bit more than 4 tickets for the Hurricane II, BUT the experience of being close to the water made it an entirely different trip and totally worthwhile……PLUS we got 5 tickets for a future whale watch. So I feel it was worth the extra cost for the experience we had. I will be booking another. 

As you can see here, the skies were a bit grey so some of these photos almost appear to be black and white, but I hope they tell the story of a great day of sighting whales.

As you are probably aware, some of our restaurants will be allowed to reopen for outdoor seating starting Monday June 8.  Please remember that restaurants will likely have limited seating so reservations will be very important. New procedures will be in place which are new for all of us, so be patient with staff and other customers as we all work our way through these new times.

Some of the restaurants we are aware of that are making plans for outdoor dining starting Monday include the following (images borrowed from each Facebook page)

Oliver’s Harbor (978-559-7638) plans to use their outdoor patio as well as some of the parking area for seating. Prime view of Main Street!

Captain Carlos is now accepting reservations at 978-283-6342. Their outside deck is awesome and we are looking forward visiting again.

We had takeout (wonderful) from Seaport Grille last night and they displayed a sign that they will also be offering outside seating starting Monday June 8 (978-282-9799). Looking forward to some key lime pie!!

A beautiful sight on Niles Pond was presented to us to try out my new camera lens! It was such a perfect setting, I’m not sure it was actually a good test of the lens. But it was made even better by the company of family members. Thanks Paula, Lori and Chris!

We were killing some time before picking up our takeout so we went down to the Pier to see what was going on. Fishing vessels coming in, pleasure sailing and a family fishing were among the activities we saw. The fishing family was very successful!

Parker River Wildlife Refuge announces on its Facebook page that it is reopening to motor vehicle traffic today Thurs June 4. This is one of my very favorite places to go and I have been missing it badly, so this is great news for us and I hope for others as well.  This is part of their announcement:

As of June 4, 2020, access to the refuge is as follows:

These are from my last visit April 14. I wonder if they miss me……see you again very soon! Now waiting for good news from Mass Audubon……..

It was a little bit gray and overcast but that didn’t stop the fun at Good Harbor Beach one weekday afternoon recently. There seemed to be more birds than people. The lifeguards appeared a bit lonely and chilled but the nesting plover appeared calm and in charge. Others braved the water or just read.

The plover exclosure and the nesting plover. They are well camouflaged!

GMG contributor Pat Dalpiaz (yours truly) was recently interviewed by renowned genealogist and podcaster Lisa Louise Cooke for an episode of Genealogy Gems Premium. It was Gloucester hero John Handran’s story as told here on Good Morning Gloucester as well as on my personal family history blog Gathering the Cousins that Lisa thought her listeners might like to hear.

It’s a story I’ve told here previously. John Handran was a US Naval seaman on duty in Lisbon Portugal in 1876 when he rescued a fellow seaman from drowning. Apparently this was not his first successful rescue, and it did earn him the US Medal of Honor as presented by President U.S. Grant. He was only 24 at the time. A few years later he married Sarah Campbell and they made a home here in Gloucester with 3 children.

John’s life was cut short in 1885 upon the sinking of the Schooner Cleopatra, itself an amazing tale. His story has been told in our family circles for many years thanks largely to the research skills of our cousin George Handran, a former Gloucester resident and esteemed genealogist.

Now, thanks to the work done as told in this podcast episode, John’s memory is honored by a plaque placed at Calvary Cemetery just prior to the quarantine. This was an arduous effort finally come to fruition due in part to the wide reach of the Good Morning Gloucester blog. Researchers looking to honor John Handran found me through GMG and the story began! It’s a lesson in how far and wide the interests of the readers and followers of the blog stretch.

When restrictions are lifted, a dedication ceremony will be held at Calvary Cemetery and I hope anyone interested or related can attend. I would love to  meet you all.

Lisa Louise Cooke has generously made this episode freely available here. Genealogy Gems Premium is a paid subscription service and is worth every penny of the $49.95 per year for its reasoned advice and responsive nature. Please give a listen as yours truly tells the story of researching Gloucester resident John Handran to verify his service to our country and his heroic acts.  If you cannot listen, read the story as told in the shownotes.  His story might have been lost to history but now can be celebrated.

Thank you readers and listeners for sharing these stories widely. Thank you Joey for your vision and support for all of us who love Gloucester.

Drift Cafe announced on their Facebook page that they plan to reopen June 8 at 10 AM.  That’s only 5 days from now, by my count!! This seems a very positive sign of hope to me. Sharing their menu from the Facebook page.

They are also looking for help: Servers, cooks, bartenders, Hosts. Rick@driftgloucesrer.com. Tell him about yourself. Experienced only please.

(Image borrowed from Facebook page)

The Trustees have annnounced the scheduled reopening of a number of properties on Thursday June 4; these include Ravenswood! Other Trustees properties will also reopen Thursday including Appleton Farms Grass Rides in Hamilton and Greenwood Farm in Ipswich. Some of the properties such as Appleton Farms Grass Rides will now implement parking fees for non-members in order to offset cost of added staff to monitor the grounds and prevent overcrowding, so check before you go. 

I recently stopped by the Crane Beach for the first visit of the year.  Visitors need a timed day parking pass which you can obtain online herewhich I did not realize.  It was explained that capacity is limited to 650 vehicles per day and even membership does not guarantee  you will be able to visit Crane Beach as expected. So be sure to check for that pass (they go very fast and you cannot request further than one week ahead). I am hoping those restrictions lift soon as well.

But, if you miss Crane Beach yourself, here’s what I saw recently: