The Lightkeeper's Blog

The Lighthouse lantern room project has been set back by concerns about the bricks that remain between the windows and the platform at the top of the long ladder. The Tower has been taken down 4.6 feet to date and another 4 feet will be broken down before a new foundation is created for the newly framed up and being galvanized lantern room 2023.

I have been awaiting a dumpster and a crew to continue the work. The job has been on pause for three weeks now. There are sensible concerns about the weather coming into play as the fall unwinds. I am already giving a great deal of thought to how to store the boardwalk for the winter.

Pictured here is one of the uncovered brackets that once held the lantern room in place. These brackets would have connected to a piece of iron that ran up and over one side of each window. It was amazing to see how each was leveraged to secure the top to the tower. All I has seen previously was the bar at the level of the lantern room and much of that was disintegrating into oxidized chips of metal.

Chores this month have included: an upgrade to the bathroom with a new mirror and the replacement of the frosted shades on the lights with clear glass shades; the painting of a good part of the runway with a clean coat of white (nails get in the way of doing the whole thing) and some scrubbing on the floor boards that take you from the house to the tower; all of the thresholds are recoated with a polished black look; the roses bushes have been trimmed to once again allow access along the path from the handicap spot to the walkway on the ocean side of the cottage; 120 feet of fence on the ocean side from the shed to the Edgerton bell has been painted; a new gate has replaced a piece of plywood that was a real eyesore; The frame for the Lighthouse Road sign has been given a coat of Essex green; and the banner that tells the story of all that the Scituate Historical Society does and how that came to pass has been returned to the fence.

The railing on the front porch was sprayed down and sanded to remove a build up of mold and moss. The next step will be to paint that rail white to match the rail by the kitchen door. I have wanted to do this for a good while and with the rest of the place being improved now seemed like the best time.

There is additional lengths of fence to be painted. Today the fence that lines the driveway was scrapped in preparation for a first coat. Steady wind has slowed down the pace of any painting but the hope is that all off the fence on the harbor side of the house will be complete by the weekend. Those pieces up by the Tower were addressed on Saturday and there is only a short stretch fronting the Harbor remaining. By Heritage Days all the whitewashing needed to take the old place through a few winters will be in hand.

The weather has been perfect for keeping the gardens flowering. Yesterday morning we took on weeding each of them and the bees were enjoying the plants as we cleaned up. There are a few more beds that need some attention but the main stage is looking pretty good.

The maritime flags spelling out Scituate Light went back to the end of the driveway on a clean black chain to discourage lost travelers from striding up the driveway. It is a look that is both welcoming and limiting. It should keep some from banging on the bell with rocks too.

Our feature image for this post arrives here after the annual fireworks show that closes the Knights of Columbus carnival. When the explosions stopped there was an arrow in the sky formed by the minerals released by the explosions. It looked like a greater than sign in math. It was another example of seeing something unexpected here at Scituate Light.