Bunchberry Cottage

And we're OFF!!

2010-01-11T23:42:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning, we finished the house sitting details and hit the road. Actually that was the plan. What happened was, I got food poisoning on Tues, which delayed packing. Even so, we were out the door by 3:30pm on Saturday. Not too bad.

The cats did great. Amore, who hates the carrier, announced her displeasure now and then. Mai-lee was quiet almost the whole way. And Chula, our sensory seeking flying cat, fell asleep two miles from home and stay that way for almost the whole trip.

The weather was good and so were the roads. We had about 2 hours of less than perfect conditions - the last hour on our side going up the mountain, and the first hour on the Canadian side coming off the mountain. Border crossing was a breeze - I think he might have been glad for the company. We had traveled straight up 27 and saw few drivers. The last hour or so, there was us, 3 moose, and the guy following us.

Jon and Diane were very excited to see their first moose. I saw mine a year ago fall, when I was working on the Wolf Survey Project (we went looking for wolves and instead found a bear, a snow owl, and 2 moose - so much for the guide). This time it was a mom with offspring, slipping down the road to find their trail. Then a few miles later there was a young male off to the side of road watching us - well, he does own the road, why shouldn't he watch?

Within 15 min's of crossing the border, we saw a brilliantly shining falling star. We took all this as a good omen, and arrived in Montreal sans problems at 11:30pm. We locked the cats in the bathroom with food and litter box and unloaded the rented minivan. Then released the prisoners.

Chula shot out of the bathroom like a load pistol and dove into the bedroom. Mai-lee stood at the bathroom door and considered her options. Amore was no where to be seen. Chula blasted out of the bedroom and zoomed into the next one, while Mai-lee enter the first cautiously and a bit shyly. Chula was on to the living room and kitchen and still no sign of Amore. As he raced back to the bathroom (to start it all over again), Mai-lee headed for the second bedroom. That, in a nut shell, is their personalities to a T. Amore did make it out of the bathroom - unnoticed, made the rounds, had a snack, and was tuck in under Diane's bed by the time we made it to bed.

I was surprised at how quickly the cats calmed down for the night - always a bad sign for sleeping. Around 3am Amore confronted me eyeball to eyeball (nearly put me on the ceiling, I might add) and had several things to say about this whole ordeal. I doubt any of them could be repeated in polite company. Around 4am, Chula climbed in between my legs and demanded his portion (put feet on legs and push!).

At 5am, Mai-lee couldn't sleep anymore and brought me her favorite pipe cleaner to share. All three of our cats fetch to some degree or other. Mai-lee's usually drops it with in 6 feet of you, and loses interested after the second toss. So I tossed it for her. She must of been feeling needy - 15 min's later I was still tossing it for her, as she kept bring it back to my pillow or shoulder. Went to the bathroom, and by the time I got back she had gone on to other things, but left me the soggy pipe cleaner on my pillow. Feel the love!

Sunday, we slept late and spent several hours arranging our new abode. We walked 3 min's to the nearest metro to get metro cards and check out the mini-mall. Then spent the rest as a down day. We were still tired from the driving.

Today, wasn't very exciting either. Although I did find a pipe cleaner tucked under the sheets with me this morning. Diane and I hung out at the apartment and Jon went to work. Oh, and when the maid came, Chula took an impromptu walk (a dash really) down the hallway. It certainly spiced up the maid's day! Tomorrow, Diane and I are off to somewhere exciting - as soon as we choose where we are going.

So far I only have one complaint - it's DRY! Maine in the winter is dry. This is DRY! Between yesterday and today, I've drank enough water to float the Titanic, and I'm still thirsty. It's so bad that we are leaving a simmering pot (sometimes a rolling boil) of water of the stove - constantly. Well, as long as someone is in the apartment and awake anyway.

Sorry I don't have any fabulous pictures to share. I thought about taking some of the moose – but since my camera was packed in the nether reaches of the van and it was dark, I decided to skip it. I didn't think anyone really cared to see pictures of us unpacking either. Next time I should have some, though.

Au Revoir!

Winter post

2009-12-12T17:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I had hoped to do a better job on posting to the blog now that we are settled in a house. So far, that hasn't happened...but I'll keep trying. I last left off with the end of June - on to July...

Unlike last summer where we had lots of sun, but I was too busy at the theater to water much - this year we had so much rain, nothing grew. Well we did get about a dozen potatoes, some carrots and peas, and a few straggly beans. But that was it. Very sad.

And our hopes for playmates for Amore became extremely strained. However, by the end of August we took possession of 2 four month old Siamese mix kittens. Chula is our flame point male, and Mai-lee is our seal point with white mittens female. Amore was quite disgusted with the whole mess and went from eating little to not eating at all. But never fear, the kittens soon won her over. These days they can be found frequently in a pile of legs and noses. The bad part is that Amore is quite little. So at 7 mos old, both kittens out weigh and out size her. Chula is as happy in the air as he is on the ground, much to Amore's dislike, as she is usually his landing pad.

Since the job that Jon was really hoping for didn't come through, he was traveling a bit with interviews. Life was getting very complicated, so to make it easier Diane and I started cutting back on what we were doing, like leaving the library after 6 months. We had hoped it would just be a short break, but it won't be turning out that way.

October came and we started Llama Training with girls - 2 four footed ones, and 3 two footed ones. Diane talked another friend into joining them, so I was helping all three prepare for the spring fair. Both 4 footed and 2 footed girls took well to each other, and things were off to a good start. I also did two more kid workshops with our costume lady. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun and learned a new part of theater. And Diane participated in a drawing class with the local homeschool group and took some private sculpting lessons from a homeschool mom. She continues to spread in her art wings.

We also had auditions for our winter play. Diane went off for the lead in Best Christmas Pageant Ever!, but landed a supporting role instead. Since Jon was still off and on with interviews he passed, but I took on the role of stage manager. It was my first time as stage manager, so instead of picking an easy play - I picked one that has 20 kids. And I had no assigned helper (kid wrangler). Fortunately, I encouraged some of the adult cast and a few of the parents to help me out. And while that was going on, so was a lot of other things.

While Jon was gone on one of this interviews, 3 raccoons got into the barn and got about half of Diane's flock. She's now down to 8 hens. I was surprised as they walked right by the llamas, and the llamas just watched them go in. Llamas general get upset and attack if strange animals get in the field or paddock area. But I guess raccoons are cat-like enough that the girls didn't considered them a threat.

Good news - Jon was finally hired by Guidewire. Bad news - it's a traveling job and he will be gone a lot. So the Fenner Family's next adventure is starting. Diane and I will be going with him frequently. The advantage to homeschooling is - you can do it anywhere. The bad news is he will only be able to fill one year of his two year vice-presidency term of the Maine Llama Association.

Diane and I also attempted Nanowrimo again this year (writing 50,000 words on a novel). I also ran 3 kid support groups to get more kids doing it. I managed to limp through the support groups, but had to give up on it myself. Last year I did because of Freya and this year because of the llamas.

Jon spent all of the month of Nov and part of Dec out in California doing training. Just before he left Willow, our young llama, fell and hurt her eye. We got her basically recovered from that before he left. Then while he was gone we discovered it was much more serious. After a couple of weeks of intensive care, we had to put her down.

Diane had to give up going to SPLASH at MIT this year as well. I just couldn't manage to get her to Boston during the middle of all this. Which is a shame as she was signed up for many great classes again this year.

But the homeschoolers came through for me. Just before Jon left for CA, we had 4 cords of wood delivered. We managed to 1 stack out of the way. So a bunch of teens from our homeschool group came one Sat morning and finished the 3 cords in just under an hour!

Since llamas will literally die of loneliness, Panda can't stay here alone. We can't afford to get another llama friend for her at the moment, so I found a nice farm for her to go on a really long overnight. I also have found another homeschool family that will be willing to take on the chickens for awhile, so Diane, I, and the cats can go with Jon at least some of the time. I also will be leaving as the theater's director of children's programs. It will be easier to come and go if I don't have to worry about workshops and plays.

As you can see from this blog and the last one, we've had a very busy and unexpected year. Even so we wish for you a joyious holiday season and a wonderful new year!

The Fenner Family

Summer Update

2009-07-24T21:48:00.014-04:00

I found that I had written this back in July, but never posted it. So here it is now....

Welcome to summer - those of you who are getting one. We are stuck in spring here. We have had nothing but rain, rain, rain, and more rain - did I mention it rained again today?

As was predicted, this winter was bad. Not as much snow, but it was cold. Cold enough that the natives were griping and complaining about how bad it was. Last year they were complaining about the record levels of snow. This year, less snow but very cold. Now the temperature is great, we just need an ark. The llamas are demanding a diving board.

As usual we are busy with all the usual stuff - homeschooling, errands, etc etc. In February, Diane and I started volunteering at the local library once a week. It's about the size of a 3 car garage double deep. We offered to come in once a week and help shelve or whatever - and the next thing I knew I was in charge of the library two hours a week.

In March Diane attended the Spark program at MIT. It's a one day event when the MIT students teach various classes. She took everything from Psychology of Perception to Balloon Animal Making. She did Splash in the Fall and fell in love with ancient Greek alphabet. March was a busy month for us. We got a new washer and dryer. Diane tried out girl scouts, but decided to put her time elsewhere. Jon was involved in with a theater reading. Which means that instead of acting out the play, the actors read the play to the audience. He had parts in both Art and Enchanted April. We rounded that off with a state llama meeting and a trip to Fl for a bit of relaxation before spring took hold.

April was a very hard for us. We lost our beloved Freya (left) back in Nov. Koko (right) started slipping away. On the 10th he went to join her. Both of them would have been 18 if they had lived until May. Amore (below) , Diane's cat, has been very lonely since his passing. We have been on the waiting list with the rescue league for some companions for her. Given her past, being abused by another cat, we must be careful who we bring home. It appears that our wait is over and by month end we should have some new friends with us. While we are looking for to our new friends, I still miss my old friends terribly.

That month Jon also lost his major contract. He has managed to keep a bunch of smaller ones to keep us going until another long term contract comes along. In fact, we just heard that the project that he would really like to do, may have it's funding in sometime next week. So we are hopeful that will happen.

Other things that happened that month, I ran a middle school workshop up at the theater for 3 weekends. Since I was made the Children's Program Director of the local community theater, I'm trying to get more kid programs going. I ran a elementary program in May. We, also, had Diane's eyes rechecked. We had discovered many years ago that she had issues with visual integration. We have worked on eye therapy ever since. The eye dr said that she had done a wonderful job, and had done everything she could for her eyes. However, her one eye does need a corrective lens. So she gets to wear one contact.

Diane took a sculpting class through the homeschool group and made a beautiful dancer. We also went to see a friend in a Shakespeare play and took in a student ballet. We had the vet come and give the llamas the once over and help clip their toenails. The girls did very well, but weren't overjoyed with us.

Diane decided to work toward the Congressional Award. She has been doing very well - and has nearly finished the first level and part of the second level.

May was a bit cheery. The theater put on Crimes of the Heart. Jon did the sound for the shows and Diane was the backstage crew for props. It ran 8 shows, and I was the host for one evening. The cast and director were so impressed and happy with Diane's work they gave her necklace with the comedy tragedy mask charm on it. Diane also spent a week helping out at a Civil War History camp. We managed to get most of the garden put in and Jon had a business trip to Boston. And the rain started....

June saw more rain - lots of rain. I think it rained nearly every day. Not little showers, but huge down pours. Before the end of the month, the culvert at the end of our first drive was washed out and created a gully 5 foot wide in parts and 18 inches deep in the middle. Some friends started taking a collection to import alligators so we could have our own tourist attraction.

Before the rain got too terrible we had the Fiber Frolic fair. I managed to get sick again, so we couldn't go and stay as we had intended. Fortunately, the fair grounds are only a half hour away. On both Sat and Sun all three of us, Panda, Willow and a borrowed llama participated in the 10th Annual Fiber Frolic Drill Team. We marched with the llamas to music. It's the highlight of the weekend. On Sun there is the llama "show", where people can take their llamas and participate in various activities.

Diane and I intended to use Panda and Willow, but they changed the times and we missed registration. Probably just as well for me, and I wasn't really up to it. Fortunately, one of the adults who has participated in the events for several years, offered his llama for Diane to use. So Diane took Cricket and went off to do Leaping Llamas - this event requires the handler to go over/under/around a horizontal bar while the llama leaps over it. The llama who leaps over the highest bar without knocking it down wins. The purpose is that llamas are pack animals and out on the trail you may come across an obstacle, like tree, that you have to go over. It also shows trust and communication between the handler and llama. Diane and Cricket took first prize and the blue ribbon for this event. There was about a dozen participants. Not bad considering she had never worked with Cricket before she was handed the lead and told to get in line.

The second event was Llama Limbo - and it's just what it sounds like -llamas going under the bar. As before, the object is that out on the trail you may have to go under obstacles. Out of about a dozen participants, Diane and Cricket took 3rd place. I have identify her mistake and next year she should do better. The problem was as soon as she got most of Cricket under the bar, she would release the tension on his lead (his head). Once his head was released, his whole body popped up like a jack in box and would knock off the bar.

Usually the have an obstacle course to take the animals through as well, but for various reasons they did not have that this year. We are hoping and requested that they put it back in next year. One high point, one of Diane's friends came and watched us on Sun. She was so impressed with the llamas that she will be joining us next year. So this fall, we will be adding training of llamas (llamamanship??) to our homeschooling schedule and her friend will be joining us. The girls are currently deciding if they want to start a 4H group or just do it on our own.

And that brings us to the beginning of July.

Holiday Greetings

2008-12-20T23:45:00.031-05:00

Here we are at the end of the year, and I need to get caught up on at least half of it for the blog! Things have been such a whirlwind of activity since June, but let's pick up where we left off - and just hit the highlights.

Our main focus for much of the July and the first of August was working on the play Carousel. Jon had a solo and played several bit parts. He also grew a full beard for the production - and shaved it off closing night. Diane and I were in the chorus with various lines and extra singing through out. Diane also played the bratty Snow child at the end. We had a wonderful run, with 11 nights of full to oversold houses. Nothing like turning people away at the box office to raise the cast's spirits! The cast and crew of over 80 people were a great group to work with, and all very "professional"... you'd never guess it was a community theater production. Between the singing, dancing, and acting rehearsals we worked about 35 hours a week towards the end... it's no wonder we were all exhausted between that and our other full-time activities.

The other area that took a lot of time was preparing the barn for the Llamas and chickens. We finally got the chicken area painted and screened in inside, and the first of two outside areas for them enclosed the last week of August. (Which a horrible windstorm the end of November left in rubble. )

We decided that we were neither ready nor would be ready for the guinea hens this year. So we canceled that order and are thinking of spring instead. Since then we have found some flaws in our design, so a rethink is in order first. With all the time away from home, the garden suffered quite a bit. Jon's latest plan is to get an automatic watering system in - that should solve lots of our problems. Even so, we fared very well with zucchini, summer squash, beans of a couple varieties, peas of a couple varieties. Our tomatoes did ok and so did the carrots. Most everything else was hit and miss. Still I thought it not bad for a first year brand new garden.

As I was sick for most of the month of August, we tried to slow down. We had visits from friends, Diane celebrated with the other local homeschoolers by going on a Not Back To School Hike. And I went up into the North Woods on a Wolf Inquiry. We inquired and no wolves wanted to meet with us that night. But I did get to see my first moose (two in fact), a snowy owl, and possible the shadowy figure of a bear. I also found out that I do a reasonable imitation of a wolf howl. The two trackers we were with were quite impressed and invited me to come back and play again. Unfortunately, pulling an all-nighter at the end of a cold does cause relapse and I was not well enough to go back before they closed the inquiry for this year. Maybe next year, I can try again.

In Sept, we made a mad dash to get one acre of land fenced in for the llama pasture, which took up most of Labor Day weekend. Nothing like putting the "Labor" in Labor Day! The girls arrived on the 8th and were extremely upset over their address being changed. In fact, a few days after they had been with us, they decided to go walkabout on their own. We had just come back from a walk and were starting to undo their leads. Without any warning Panda suddenly changed direction, I was undoing her halter and didn't even see her turn, and whoosh she was gone out of the pasture with Willow hot on her tail.

They took off for the main road, which was the direction their previous owners had left by, but once at the main road they had no idea which was to turn. So they turned around and ran straight at me. I had gotten Panda's halter off before she left, but Diane had not yet taken Willow's off. I managed to grab her lead as she ran by. Once we had her, it was only a matter of time before we got both her and Panda back in safely. Since then they have settled in and seem to look forward to seeing us each day, especially at dinner time.

Introducing the llamas to Diane's chickens has been a real treat. Since the llama's area goes completely around the chickens outside area, the llamas spotted the chickens straight off - and the chickens the llamas. Panda and Willow went up to the fence to sniff the chickens. The chickens looked up to see the llama coming towards them and went totally insane. All the chickens went in one direction in a shared death march and the llamas took off in the other direction aiming for the trailer they had just climbed out of.

Since then Diane has held a chicken for the girls to sniff. Panda gave it a good once over, and has basically ignored the birds since then. She does make a disgusted grunting sound when she finds them in her bedroom. Willow gave the bird a good sniffing as well, but has not been satisfied. Being a do it yourselfer, she is quite sure that the bird will smell differently if no one is holding it, so she keeps trying to sniff or maybe pull out a tail feather. Hard to say as the chickens won't let her get close enough to find out. The chickens are unimpressed with the llamas as long as the llamas don't get too close. If they do, the chickens make an impressive amount of noise and flutter a very short distance away.

Sept also brought a major milestone for Diane - her 13th birthday. She had a couple of friends over for a quiet afternoon and dinner and cake. We also had the Maine Llama Association meeting here, as everyone wanted to see our new barn and how well the llama's were adjusting. The girl's previous owners came as well, and the girls were still mad enough they refused to acknowledge their presence until bribed with carrots - then it was only a nodding acquaintance. I think the fact that the previous owners did not have their trailer with them had a lot to do with the attitude.

I also helped put on the second middle school workshop at the theater. We had twelve kids (ages 11-14) for three afternoons and had a wonderful time - I know because Diane and her friends gave me all the pro's and con's for the three days.

We ended the month by going a field trip to a corn maze and pumpkin picking patch with the local homeschool group. I also found the problem with having been a docent and giving tours in my former life BC (before children). I cringe every time the tour guide makes a fatal mistake. Even so, the kids had a great time getting lost in the corn maze.

The first of Oct, we went to Texas for my step sister's wedding and to visit family and friends. It was a very fast and furious 12 days, when we only stopped to sleep. We got home just in time for the auditions for Wind in the Willows. Jon played two roles. Diane played five roles that they pushed into two roles. And I volunteered to help with makeup - there were 26 faces that needed to be made up and a couple of them changed completely during intermission.

We had three other kids from our workshops audition and get parts as well, so Diane had a great time with her friends. There also ended up being 6 or 7 homeschooled kids involved in the cast and crew. I find it fantastic that even in this small town that we scored so many.

I was also asked to head up all of the children programs. The lady who ran, with my help, the middle school program left the theater. So I will be continuing that program and creating new ones as well. I'm finding this a bit daunting since before last winter's play I had no real theater experience. Let's hope this isn't a case of "the blind leading the blind".

Diane decided last year that she was too old to go trick or treating, so we stayed home again this year and played games and watched movies. I had hoped to have some of her friends over, but that didn't work out. Hopefully next year I can squeeze that in.

Now we are up to November. Rehearsals for Wind in the Willows ran the end of Oct, and all of Nov. I was asked to watch many of the rehearsal in my new position so I could see what we needed to work on. And it was at one of these rehearsals that I fell down 4 steps going up to the seating area. I was sitting in a chair, when suddenly for no apparent reason the chair went over the edge and down the steps - taking me with it. I was rather battered and bruised, but nothing broken.

The play opened Thanksgiving Day and unlike our last winter's play The Emperor's New Clothes, Wind in the Willows was a smash. Just like the summer production we played to a sold out crowd nearly every night, and a full house on the 2 nights we didn't sell out. The show ran for 10 performances over two weekends.

Jon was asked by the Maine Llama Association to run as Vice President in this month's election. Jon offered to debate his position, just like they had been doing on tv for what seems like forever. Since no one was running against him, the current board offered to let him debate a llama. But Jon figured he wouldn't win that debate. Since only one person was running for each office, everyone was elected. Jon will assume his duties the beginning of the year.

Diane was able to attend Splash this year. It's a program put on by MIT in Boston. Over all she had a great time, and picked up a new interest in the Greek Alphabet. There were several classes that left her wondering why she needed to go to college if the MIT students couldn't teach her anything new. I told her I'd get back to her on that one, and directed her attention back to the Greek forgotten letters.

As wonderful as this was Nov was a very hard month for us. Freya, our Siamese female cat, became seriously ill. After several weeks of nursing her, she took a very bad turn. We buried her the day before opening. Even now a month later, we are all still adjusting and missing her terribly.

Because of this I was unable to finish Nano (National Novel Writing Month - 50,000 words) this year. Both Diane and I started out strong, but as Freya became worse we lost interest in it. Both of us like the stories we started and intended to do more with them in the upcoming year. We also want to compete again next year.

A few days before Thanksgiving we had a terrible wind storm. We lost only a few branches, but part of our grape arbor and all of the outside chicken run. We also lost power for 24 hours. This rammed home the idea that we needed to get winter storm provisions finished up, and that laundry must be caught up at all times. A few days later a light windstorm took out the rest of the grape arbor.

With the playing starting on turkey day and the loss of our good friend, we choose to skip Thanksgiving this year. At first we just postponed, but as the days slid by no one was interested in it.

Which brings us to December!

After the play ended we had quite an ice storm. Lost power for another 24 hours and lots of branches.

We did have one tree come down on the llamas fence, but it did not take it out. That was the worst of it for us. Most of the state was hit and the damage is far reaching. We were lucky to get our power on so quickly, in many places it was out for days.

An early ice storm does not bode well for this winter. The ice usually comes the month of Jan. With snow in Dec and Feb - the end of time. They are predicting this will be a very hard winter for our state. So far the snow has been minimal. No more than about 4" at any one time, and it's gone pretty quick. Diane is excited as they are predicting a good snow fall tomorrow - so sledding season is upon us.

This is a very quick highlight of the second half of our year. So much more happened and we were constantly busy. Jon is taking these next two weeks off and we are hibernating in preparation for next year.

We wish all of you a fun and happy holiday season! And may the New Year smile upon you and yours!

The Barn

2008-06-24T23:16:00.079-04:00

This last month, we have basically been working on the summer play, wrapping our home school year and waiting for the barn to be finished. Here are pictures of the barn in various stages from May 22 to June 22.

The windows are on the south side of the barn. The inside is broken into 3 sections. One for Diane's chickens, one for the llamas, and the third for equipment, office and tractor.

The third picture is of the back of the barn. You can see the garage just beyond it to the south. The house is on the other side of the garage, facing back towards the garage and barn.

Originally our plan was to put the barn behind the barn, not next to it. But the price of gravel went way up before we started. So we decided to put it beside the garage. The llama's pen will wrap around the chicken's pen to help protect them from foxes, etc.

The chickens will have two separate outside pens to rotate through. We are hoping that will help keep them with some green stuff to eat. I'm sure they will also go romp through the llama's area to help them keep
the vegetation down. We have been told that the llamas and the chickens should do fine together.

I've been putting these in order of how it was built. Here are some of the pictures from the inside of the barn.

The llamas will be next to the stairs at the front of the barn. This should make it easy to load them into the trailer and to take them out for packing down to the pond. The chickens will be at the back with the tractor across from them. We put in a double door for the tractor.

The chickens will have an exit on the side and the back to allow them into whichever pen they are to be in for the day. They will have access to the outdoors all the time. I guess that makes them modified free range.

Here is a picture of the back when it was nearly finished. As you can see the north side has no windows. We are intending on putting the compost bins up against this side of the barn.

Here is a great picture of the south side of the barn with it's windows and dutch doors. Then the inside picture to match it. Jon has been working getting it wired for the electricity this week. Then next week we will work on the plumbing.

The builders are just about finished with their part, then Jon and I will finish it off. We are guessing it will take us about a month to finish since we won't be able to work on it full time and we are still in rehearsals all next month.

The big openings on the front and back are for garage doors. We planned that way for easy cleaning. We will put a sliding wall between the llamas and the chickens. This will allow us to use the tractor to clean out the barn quickly.

Here is a picture that shows the upstairs, where the hay will be stored. On half will be open to let in the light from the upper windows. On the chicken side, we will cover it with mesh to keep them from taking over the whole barn.

With any luck the next barn pictures will include animals living there. We have arranged for two llamas so far. Our goal is three to start with. Currently our "llama layway" consists of Panda and her daughter Willow. I don't have pictures to share yet, but as soon as I do they will be up here.

Willow is just over a year. She is white with lovely dark reddish brown patches on her back, and her face. Panda is reddish brown all over with a white face and white down her front. They will be joining us in August. But Diane's chickens will move in as soon as we get their living quarters ready. They will be sharing their living space with guinea hens. The guineas will be arriving in late July. While our area has few ticks, the guineas will help ensure it stays that way.

That's about it for the barn. The garden is doing very well - in parts. Quite a few things are growing very very slowly, but we remain hopeful.

Spring time craziness

2008-05-22T22:23:00.037-04:00

Time to get caught up again. We have had a lot happen since the last entry.

First a quick update on Diane's chickens. They are doing great and all have made it to pullethood. Our neighbor took his 9, so we are down to 18 layers. However, we think it will be 17 layers, because one of them is really looking like a rooster. Here are two pictures we took back at the beginning of April. They look like full grown hens now, but I don't have any recent pictures.

The garden is off to a great start. Here is the site we chose to use. The stick is the middle of the garden. That was the middle of April. Here is the layout for the garden. Both of these pictures were taken while I was standing facing south next to the woodshed. The shadow in the second one is the house. As you can tell we are doing raised beds, which meant bring in lots of soil mix. Not shown in the second picture is our area for the trellises. But you can see those in the third shot. You can also see some of our frost hardy plants already in the ground. Since this last picture, we have finished filling the beds, putting in the fruit, and many of the vegetables. But that did not happen until May. I don't have current pictures of the garden either. Jon's folks are here and they helped us with the last big planting. There will be one more after they leave, and then several smaller plantings through out the growing season.

Towards the end of April, we gave up on trying to paint the inside of the house ourselves. Between planning the barn and garden, and getting things ready for each, we just are out of time. We started with Diane's room and then did the living room. We sponged painted the far wall of her room and the slanty ceiling pieces - that we did ourselves. Then had the rest painted purple. I was hoping to show what it looks like, but we haven't gotten her room fully put together again. Even so, here are pictures of her room as we were doing it. There is white primer on the walls covering the interesting yellow color. There is no such thing as a "bad" color. But it is amazing the difference a color you do like makes to a room. Her room seems so much more cheerful now. I've included a picture of what it looked like when the previous owners were still here. As soon as we get it up completely back together I post those pictures as well.

Here is a picture of how the living room looked before, and then two of it in the process of painting. Jon nearly has the bookcases finished. He still hasn't had time for the doors. They look wonderful. This picture is with the primer, not the actual color which is dark green. As you can see the house will look quite different after we are finished with it. We hope to continue with the painting in June, but first we must meet some other time lines.

We also had the barn started. Which is something we have waited for in anticipation. Not only will it house Diane's chickens, which are currently living in the garage. It will house our llamas. The painting and the barn started the same. But the week before Jon and I cleared most of the trees from the area where the barn is being built. We were hoping to build it behind the garage, but with the cost of everything rising, we decided to build it next to the garage on the far side. I thought I had taken pictures of the area before we started, but I can't find them. So here is one taken last fall just before snow hit. The barn is being built just to the left of the white tarp. The second one kind of gives you an idea of how it is located with the house. Third picture is the footings. The last two show the last two days of progress on the barn.

That really sums things up. We have also joined the local homeschool group and are getting involved there. I am helping with a 3 day teen workshop for community theater. Rehearsals for the summer play start in a few short weeks. And soon we will be doing Llama Drill Team at a local fair. As I said, Jon's folks are staying with us for two weeks and will be leaving on Memorial Day to go home. We have not been lazy to say the least.

Guatemala - Habitat for Humanity

2008-03-16T18:00:00.001-04:00

Well, this was definitely a trip to remember!

Some of our business associates have been going to Guatemala for Habitat for Humanity for several years now, and while it's been on my list of "to do's", it's just never made it to the top... until this year.

For those of your who don't know, Habitat for Humanity is a world-wide organization that helps families to build houses who would otherwise not be able to afford to do so. There are millions of people world-wide who are either living in tents, cardboard boxes, or living 10 people to a 2 room house. Most of those people have no way to afford a house with electricity, water, and indoor plumbing, but Habitat makes it possible.

Why Guatemala you ask? Why not help those people in the United States who homeless? Well, to be frank, we've got it easy in the U.S. Even the lowest level of living in the U.S. is much better than what the majority of those in Guatemala face. The average income per person is only $1,680 U.S. Dollars, and there is a housing deficit of about 1.5 million people there. That's a lot of people without homes!

So, what did I do? Well, there was a group of about 60 of us that went this year. We worked on building a total of 10 houses, and I helped build a new house for a wonderful Guatemalan couple, Nery and Lucia and their 1 month old baby boy Nery the 3rd. The colony we worked at was in Zacapa, in the town of Teculutan. We actually worked more with Nery's father, Neddie, since Nery worked a full-time job and couldn't get off (or be fired). We completed about 3/4s of the house, and the next group to arrive will finish it off for them. The house is nothing fancy, just a 4 room cinder-block house, but compared to where they're coming from, it's a palace!

It's really hard to express in words what it means to help someone in this way, and all I can say is it's something that everyone should experience at least once. They warned me when I went that you don't just do this once. Once you've done it, you'll be back to help again.

One of the things that impressed me most about the Guatemalan's was their pride in their community. When I think of a poor country, I think of streets littered with trash, and run-down dilapidated buildings everywhere. And while there was their share of run-down buildings, the towns and streets were relatively clean. Giving someone the hand up that Habitat does, and not just a hand out, let's people take pride in their community and their home. The quote from the unknown author "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime" is evident in the lives of these people.

And it wasn't all hard work while we were there, either. We visited the Mayan ruins in Quirigua as well as some beautiful waterfalls. We also got to enjoy a lot of the local food and culture, including an art museum and natural history museum, as well as dancing and singing from local artists.

So, will I go back again? I definitely want to! The colony in Teculutan is just about finished, so there won't be any more houses to build there. But they are already looking at other land, and there are other places throughout the world that I'd be happy to go to as well. Just the experience of working with the caliber of people who volunteered their time and money to do this, and the sincerity and happiness it brings those that benefit from it, make it more than worth what I put into it!

What have we been up to lately...

2008-03-16T17:50:00.045-04:00

This month started off with Jon going to Guatemala. Diane and I did not go, as neither of us does well heat. Guatemala gets much hotter even in March, than either of us can handle without becoming ill. You can see Guatemala on the map - it's in the lower right section.

As soon as Jon got back, we pushed in to high gear on our projects. We finalized the colors for about half the house and got the paint. I am hoping we can start painting before the end of the month.

We have been in contact with the contractor for the barn and that is moving forward. His team will put up the outside and we will customize the inside. Llamas have some similar needs as horses, but many are different. So we decided it would be easier to do that part ourselves.

The garden is moving forward. We got the lumber to make the raised beds, and our seedlings are looking good (they'd look better if Diane's cat would stop sleeping on them). She's all for sharing as long as she gets the best sunbeam. Our biggest concern is that all this white stuff is gone before we transplant the cabbage in 3 weeks. Another good reason for doing raised beds - the ground won't be frozen.

Diane's cherry tomatoes are doing well, as is her cabbage. The first set of onions is up, and the second should start sprouting any day. The broccoli is also doing very well, even though it's not in the picture. Diane's herbs are doing so so. The three that chose to grow are doing really well, the other three aren't growing at all even after a second planting.

Knowing that Diane's chickens should arrive Mon-Wed; we spent yesterday getting ready for them. She has wanted her own an egg business for about 5 years now. Back in January we got them ordered. She got 4 each of Buff Rocks, White Orpingtons, Spangled Hamburgs, and Araucanas (Easter Chickens). A neighbor agreed to fill out her order (she needed 25) and got 9 Rhode Island Reds. They are all supposed to be females, but we will see. The deal was though, that he couldn't take them now, so she will be raising his chicks as well. Here is the expandable hatchery we set up for them yesterday. It's in the basement as the barn isn't ready, and the garage and mudroom are not insulated.

With this being Maine, we wanted to experience a real Sugaring (collecting of maple sap and making it into syrup). We had hoped to have some maple trees on our place to do our own. We have the trees but they are too young. I found a place about a half hour away where we can help gather the sap, and then return another day to boil it into syrup. We decided this would be a great chance to hit the hardware store and get the extra lumber we need for the bookcases and the chick feed.

Just before we left the house, the post office several towns away called. Her chicks had been delivered to them, since the closest post office to us was closed today. We canceled the Sugaring and headed out to get her chicks (picking up some feed on the way). In case anyone has ever wondered, no, chicks do not like taking a car ride. They told us about it the whole 45 min's on the way home.

We know better than to bring an animal into the house without introducing it to Freya. It completely stresses her out and makes her ill. So we very carefully showed her the chicks. She decided they were too small to eat and they smelled funny. You have never seen a more unimpressed cat. It was very much - call me when they are big enough to eat.
We also very carefully showed the chicks to Amore - Diane's cat. Amore didn't know what to think of them. She backed away quietly. She wasn't afraid, but definitely confused by them.

Next step was the put them in the hatchery. But you can't just release them. You have to "drown" them first. You hold their beaks under water until they drink.
Not wanting dehydrated chicks we drown them.

After that we released them and let them wander about finding their food and getting warm under the heat lamp. The reason the pictures are so red/pink is because of the red light in the heat lamp. I've included one sepia print here as to make it easier to see the chicks.

At one point, Amore came down into the basement with Jon. I held her and let her observe the chicks for bit. Then Diane picked up one and let her sniff it. Amore gave it a good sniffing and decided right there and then - it was evil and to be avoided at all costs. After all she had lost her basement privileges and her Diane in one puff of fuzz. To make matters even worse, Jon was late starting the fire in the wood oven for her. Needless to say, she has spent the rest of the day pouting.

Diane has spent most of her day down with the chicks - singing and playing her zither (lap harp) for them. And reading chemistry to them.

February's News

2008-03-16T16:48:00.014-04:00

February is always the longest month of winter. Everyone is sure we are doomed to the cold forever and there is no hint of spring in the air. Cabin fever also starts setting in. So we try and make Feb fast and furious. We don't have many pictures this month, so I stuck in a bunch of Diane's snowman's life.

We went to the 25th anniversary of Cats for early valentines. Jon and I had seen it when we lived back in Texas. It was a good production even if it did take place in the civic center in Augusta, where they play basketball. The seating could have been better though. The stadium seating ran along the side with the stage being at one of the short ends. So it have elevated seating you had to sideways to the stage. If you sat on the floor you had to dodge around the person's head in front of you.

In the middle of the month, we went to tryouts for the summer musical of the community theater. This year the musical will be Carousel. With all the other things we have going on this summer, we decided to aim at small parts or the chorus. Diane will be one of the Snow's children. Jon will play the part of the captain. And since there aren't any small women parts - I'll be in the chorus. They do try outs now to get in as many local people as they can. In June will be the "summer" people's tryouts and callbacks.

We attended a miniature show, with plans on building some of our own mini's next winter. I doubt we will have time before then.

The garden planning was in its 5th or 95th revision by that point. But by the 23rd, we started some seeds indoors. We are planning on following the square foot gardening method and using raised beds. The dirt here is mainly clay and not soil. It seemed smart to go with raised beds and bring in good soil, than to spend a year or two trying to fix what we have.

We came up with several layouts and decided on a compass rose plan with a bed of strawberries in the middle. On the north end, we will have trellises and an arbor for grapes, as well as corn. Diane will have her own squares and she is planning on have mainly purple veggies. We can't wait to see what her purple dragon carrots will look like.

We are also participating in PAR - plant a row. Except for us, it will be plant a square (actually several squares) - we never have been very good doing things the same way as everyone else does them. The idea of PAR is you plant extra seeds, and the veggies you get from them go to the local food bank. This will also be what Diane will be using for her community service project this summer.

Jon was able to nearly finish the bookcases. We need to get some more wood for some of the shelves and to make the doors. But other than that, they are finished and looking great. Here they are at various stages, including the mocked up doors for the front.

Jon and I debated over several things in the barn, but we finally decided where to locate it. It will be back behind the garage. And after several drafts we finally have a good idea of what the barn may or may not look like. By the end of the month, I had picked out the colors for painting the house, and was trying to decide if that is really what we were going to paint.

And to finish this update up - since it is rather light, we decided to share a picture of one of Diane's science projects. It's the best of the bunch, for some reason they didn't come out. But she made several elements from the periodic table (she's studying chemistry) using homemade dough. This is fluorine.

The protons are brown, electrons green, and neutrons are blue.

January's News

2008-03-16T16:05:00.016-04:00

I’ve fallen rather beyond. It’s amazing how busy we can get and have very little to show for it.

To start things off – the rash Diane and Jon had turned out not to be the chicken pox. It lasted about a week, was gone a week, then came back. It left for two weeks then Diane got it again. We are pretty sure it’s from the hot tub and are working on resolving the problem. Otherwise the hot tub has been wonderful and we use at least every other day/night.

We have had a lot of snow this year, and it has yet to melt away so we can see the ground. There are some places under the trees that have melted off and we see patches of pine needles. So we are hopeful that spring is coming. Even so, looking out the back doors of the dining room – all you see is white, white, and more white.

As for January, Jon had an unexpected business trip to Washington, DC come up. Diane and I went with him. He had one day of meetings and one day of sight seeing, and Diane and I had two days of sight seeing.

Diane was in charge of the camera and she took pictures of the White House and the Washington Monument. She also took lots of art pictures. Here is one from the sculptures outside the “new” American Indian Museum.

The big red piece is on the mall itself and the black on is outside the Hirshhorn Museum. Unfortunately we don’t have the names of the pieces. Diane had taken pictures of the plaques, as she always does, but they were too blurry to read.

We came back and I celebrated my birthday. Nothing big, out to dinner and family games at home. The next week we went to a Chihuly exhibit. For those of you who have not seen his work, you really should check him out. He and his team do HUGE masterpieces in blown glass. We also discovered one of the disadvantages to traveling around the country so much. We have been able to see whole exhibits of just his work. We have seen room and room after room stuffed full of these organic looking glass pieces that look directly from the sea or Mars or something. So the quiet, but very nice, exhibit of modern glass blowers was a bit of a let down. There were probably 30 pieces total and less than 5 were Chihuly’s. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but you can see a lot of his work on the Internet.

We finished off the month, we a weekend cruise to Nassau. It was for business, but with time to go into the city on the day we docked. Here’s a picture of the ship and one of the Governor’s House. Since she got to baby sit a younger friend, she had a great time. Life’s rough when you spend most of the day at the pool.

Jon also started taking Spanish lesson from a lady who was in The Emperor’s New Clothes with us. He wanted to get in as much as he could before his trip to Guatemala in March for Habitat for Humanity.

The bookcases were coming along, but with so much other stuff going on, they were not completed as soon as we had hoped. We also rounded the month out with making plans for our garden – both fruit and veggies, making plans for the barn, and picking colors to paint the inside of the house.

Happy New Year!!

2008-01-02T17:50:00.000-05:00

We have had a busy month of December. The hot tub was delayed by a week because of snow, but it finally arrived on Sat. It was good timing as the play ended Sun. So we did our play, stayed for the end of the year party and came home to a warm hot tub. By Monday it was up to par, and since then we have been in many times and enjoying it!

With the play finished we went right into making Christmas presents. Since we did not have much time we went easy this year. We painted reindeer and made wall hangings to send out. Unfortunately, I did not remember to take pictures until after we mailed them. However we did take pictures of Diane making a quilt for her little cousin.

We got them mailed out on Monday and relaxed. We had the tree up, but not decorated. Needed to do that and wrap our own presents and enjoy then end of the year - or so we thought.

On Tues, Diane reported that she had a couple of bug bites. Odd for this time of year, but we didn't think too much of it. Later that afternoon she reported the few bug bites were now several. A quick check showed that they were not bug bites, but a rash. It started just below her armpits and went down to mid thigh. It looked like a heat rash gone mad.

We pulled up pictures on the web of different rashes, and none of them matched hers. It wasn't itching or hurting, so we let it be. We were thinking that she might be reacting to the chemicals in the hot tub. Wed it looked much better, but far from gone. On Thurs, Jon woke me up with telling me that she had the chicken pox. He knew this because his spots looked just liked the pictures of chicken pox we had seen on the web, even though hers didn't.

Yep, he had them again. I had had them a few times when I was little so I was hoping I was immune. But since I've had them more than once and Jon has had them more than once now, Diane's chances of getting them again seems pretty good.

Fortunately, Jon only got a few dozen spots, but Diane had hundreds. At least they didn't itch. So things went relatively well, even though it lasted through Christmas.

Jon started working on the bookshelves for the living room. We are taking the back wall and covering them with built in bookcases - we need the space. The bottom half will be cabinets with doors, with bookshelves on the top.

He is making great progress in the week and a half he has had (with chicken pox). Here's how it is looking. Some of the pictures are dark, but hopefully you can make them out. With luck, he will be able to finish them this month.

Snow came early this year, the locals tell us. It arrived early in December and never melted off. Usually doesn't arrive until nearly Christmas. Then it doesn't last - it comes and goes. We started out with about 18", then it melt back to around 8". We received another few inches before Christmas and now we are being dumped on. It's predicated that we will get up to 18" and maybe more over the next few days. Here are some photos taken at night.

This first one is of the back porch taken this summer. The snow picture is taken from inside the house looking out at the "missing step". It's hard to tell in the picture, but the snow is all the way up to the top step - it's not from drifts or shoveling either.

The next one is of the tiny apple tree that you can see straight out the same back doors. In this picture, taken this summer, it's the tree on the far right. Look at the lowest branch on the right side of the tree. The rock in the summer picture is completely missing under the snow now. The large mound in the winter picture is a snow mound that Jon made for Diane to sled down. And in the far back left corner of the winter picture, you can see the hammock that we hung this summer. We intended to take it down, but snow came early and hasn't left. The rope knot froze solid and we couldn't undo it. Here is another picture of the sledding hill and the hammock.

And here is a picture taken looking out the back of the mudroom and then another looking out the front. You can see the path that Jon blows clear to the garage and the one of the right is to the firewood. I tried to get some more out the front, but they did not come out. I'll take more of those when the snow stops. However, from what we can see, it appears the decorative fence at the front is buried under snow.

Here are some we took this morning. The first one is out the back door towards the east side of the yard. You can see all the snow that piled up on the table. The other one is out the front windows. If you look behind the birdbath, you can just make out the tips of the 3 foot tall fence. Currently the forecast is for no more snow through the end of next week, and it's suppose to get above freezing all next week - we shall see.

And for the record, even if we lose power we will stay nice and warm. We have a wood burning stove in the dining room that keeps the whole house toasty warm. In fact, we have started cooking on it instead of the stove top. We also can't light it if it's over 45 outside, because we will roast. Tried it back in Oct, and had to open the windows to cool the house down. We do have oil for the house heat, but we usually use the stove on days we are home - much more efficient. Three large armfuls of wood, takes care of it for the day and night - in fact many nights we have to open our bedroom windows to cool the room off enough to sleep.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

2007-12-05T20:11:00.001-05:00

As you can see we got snow. These last few days we received about 18 inches of the white stuff. Diane has been having a blast outside, sledding and playing. Jon used the snow blower and made her a mound in the middle of the backyard to sled down.

In other news, both Diane and I finished our Nano goals. Mine was 50,000 words and hers was 6,500. I am hoping to finish the actual story in Jan – no time in Dec. And then start editing it. Diane wants to do the same with hers. We will keep you posted on how well that is going.

The play got off to a rough start, but is doing wonderful. Audience attendance has been low, but hopefully it will pick up this week. Here is a picture of the poster they put out for it. They had intended to put Diane in her costume on it. Unfortunately, the pictures did not turn out and there was no time to take more. And as promised here is a picture of Diane in her costume.

My jobs for the play continue to grow. Now I am Woman on the Street, asst. stage manager, and asst. makeup helper, and keeper of the butterflies. Towards the end of act 1 I lower 3 mobiles of butterflies down from the ceiling. I make them dance through a song, and then make them “fly away”.

After opening night, there was a cast party. We had birthday cake for Jon. So he celebrated his birthday at the theater. We also tossed in the new sound girl, as it was her birthday the day before.

We had 3 days off from the play. I was hoping to get caught up and rested, but I didn’t get either. Better than before, I think. We did manage to find the mudroom. So now we don’t have to track all the snow across the floor to find somewhere dry to take off our boots and wet stuff.

And this week we had a visitor. The picture is not the best, but he is in a tree straight out our backdoor. We have been watching for him to see if he will make another appearance for a photo shoot.

Our next year is filling up fast with projects and things to do and be involved in. We have found our new community very welcoming and feel very at home here. We wish the same for all you.

May your new year be filled with love and magical wishes!

2007-12-04T18:12:00.000-05:00

It's a Meme, an online game of tag. Answer the questions, and tag someone else, that is how the game is played. Leapingfromthebox was kind enough to tag me, so here goes.

Here are the questions and they pertain to the past week:

1. What did you accomplish?
2. Did anything not go as expected?
3. What was the highlight of your week?
4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?

1. What did you accomplish?

I accomplished NaNo, National Novel Writing Month. Wrote 50+K words. Major accomplishment!

I was also in a community play. Not a leading role or anything like that. But I do have a speaking part and I’m in the chorus for singing and dancing. This is the first real play I have been in.

2. Did anything not go as expected?

We were expecting our spa to be delivered, but it was delayed a week because of the 16 inches of snow that fell.

3. What was the highlight of your week?

Completing NaNo!

4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?

Yes, Jon has received some investment pay from a client. We knew it was coming sometime between now and 100 years – I was expecting it more towards the 100 years.

First Snow of the Season

2007-11-16T12:26:00.000-05:00

Today is the first snow of the season. It's not sticking of course, as it is too warm still. Our nights have been in the 30's, but days are still in the 40's and 50's. I tried to take a picture of it to share, but the snow fakes are too small to see.

I am happy to report that the patio is finished! The last picture you saw was of Jon standing on the first three pavers - that was last Thurs. The next picture was how it looked on Mon. And he finished it on Wed.

Jon still needs to get electricity out to site. He will probably do that Sat or Sun. Then all we have to do is wait for the hot tub. We are hoping to hear today on when it will be arriving. And we are hoping that will be the end of our outdoor projects, until next spring.

This will not be the end of our indoor projects. As soon as Nano and the play are over, we will return to unpacking, which has been woefully neglected since the beginning of Nov. After we finish that, we will start painting. Which is backwards of the way I normally try to do it, but events were beyond my control. Part of the house was painted quite nicely, and most of it was done rather poorly. Not to mention most of the colors do not go with our things. I haven't decided what colors to use, but I am thinking warm tones. Although, perhaps not as warm as the orange mustard seed color that is in our office!

As for Nano, both Diane and I are a bit behind. We should have passed the halfway mark yesterday, and we didn't. However, we are very close. I do have a few concerns about finishing on time. Extra rehearsals have been called, leaving us even less time for writing. And we will have to finish before the end of the month, as opening night is Nov 29th. I am hoping to finish by the 27th, so I can have the 28th to hyperventilate about the play.

I know I promised a picture of Diane in rehearsal, unfortunately, I forgot my camera. I will try again next week. Our parts are going quite well. Jon's and my part is quite small, so the lines were not difficult to learn. Our staging is also quite easy. Diane's staging is also quite easy. Her lines are not. She has a short monologue at the very beginning and a long monologue at the very end. Her biggest challenged has not be the memorization though. It is speaking loud and slowly. There are no microphones, so her voice is easily lost in the theater. And Diane is related to me. In other words, she talks a billion words a minute.

On this past Mon, the director told Diane that by Wed's rehearsal and she had have her part memorized, get louder and slower. So Tues and Wed we practice. Out back we have a large stone about 50 feet from the house. I had her stand on the rock, while I sat on the back steps.

Wed's rehearsal had several issues. Diane was not one of them. She gave her big monologue and she nailed it. The director was impressed that she was a good speed and loud, not to mention she needed no cues to remember her lines. The rest of the cast even clapped for her. There are advantages to being the youngest - even if only by 2 years.

As this is a musical, extra rehearsals have been called for the dance numbers. All three of us are in the chorus - in fact unless your on stage with a speaking part at the time of the chorus, your in the chorus. There are 10 cast members, and when we all get on stage it is very tight. For being amateurs, we are not too bad. But we still need tons of work before opening night.

That's all I have to report this time. Since I don't have any more pictures for you, I stick on some of the cats. They aren't the best pics in the world and they were taken this past Jan, when we were spending the winter on the island. The black cat is Diane's. Her name is Amore (with a tic over the e). She is almost 3.5 years old. The other two are Freya and Koko. They are 16.5 years old now. Both Siamese are doing pretty well. Koko (far right) has lost his sight and hearing, but he doesn't let that slow him down too much. His eye drops keep him pain free. He has been very happy in our new home. We can tell, because he stopped waking everyone up a half dozen times in the middle of night. He also stopped sleeping on my face/head/neck every night. Which is a great improvement!

Some of you were asking about leaving comments. Jon thinks he was able to fix the problem on that. Also, you have to have a google account to leave message.

Since this is my first time doing anything like this, the layout will be changing as I figure things out. I have gone back today and made some format changes that hopefully will make it easier to read.

Just in case anyone does not know, you can double click on the pictures and it will give you a bigger one.

And while I was wasting time on this, and not typing on Nano, as I should be, it started snowing harder and sticking. Well, it's sticking to the grass and tables, but not the actual ground. So I snapped a couple pics of that. My favorite is with the crabapple tree out the front door.

Till next time....

The Front loader Attacks

2007-11-12T13:10:00.000-05:00

Here it is almost the middle of November. Things have been moving very quickly here.

Nano - National Novel Writing Month - is going very well. Both Diane and I are about a 1/4 of the way through our word counts. The words are flowing very well, it is more a matter of time to sit down and pound them out.

The patio is going very well also. We are hoping to get the delivery date for the hot tub later this week. We have been working very hard at it. Jon rented a front loader for a day to help put in the gravel and sand. It arrived at 6am and we were out to work as the sun came up. We wanted an early start since it is dark before 5pm now. I was also hoping we could use the front loader for a few other jobs if there was time. Unfortunately, it rained the day before. The soggy yard did not appreciate the heavy front loader and it made a mess of the yard.

And yes, that mess is mainly where I re-laid most of the sod from the patio area. It is now buried under several inches of muck and yuck. However we were able to finish digging it out, put the gravel in and the sand in about 5 hours - which is much less than it would have taken by hand.

Here is pictures of the rest of the digging out, the gravel after it was tamped down (yes I know it looks like dirt), and of the sand being put on the paper (weed cover) and yes, it looks like dirt as well. Then there is a picture of Jon standing on the first three pavers he put in. But we stopped there to do some other projects on our list.

Diane has a tree all picked out to hang a swing from, but we need to do a bit of clearing to get to it. We thought we would use the front loader to do that. We figured we could do this easily in less than half an hour and then break for lunch. In order to get to the tree, you pass what we affectionately call the Fenner Pond. There is a hole in the ground that is about 5 feet long, 2 feet wide and 12 inches deep. Coming off this is a tiny riverette - about 6 inches wide and 4 inches deep. We figured the big monster front loader would not have a problem cross that to get to the stumps. The front wheels did fine, but the back wheels got stuck.

We never did get the tree stumps out or a path cleared to the swing tree. Instead we spent an hour and a half getting the front loader unstuck and creating Fenner Pond II, and our very own lava flow (okay, it's mud - but as we rolled the front loader back and forth it looked like lava flowing out).

There were several times I thought I might drown while sitting in the front loader waiting for Jon to put more dirt under the tires. The hole about 2 1/2 feet deep and the water from pond one just kept rushing it, but we had severed the drainage riverette with the tire tracks. (I reopened the drainage riverette, but it has been 4 days since then, and it is still just as full.)

We finally got some cement blocks under the tires to give extra traction to get it out. The mud swallowed them up very quickly and we have no idea where they are and they can stay buried too, for all we care.

I managed to stay relatively clean through this process, but Jon was covered in mud from mid-calf down. It was so watery that it looked like hot chocolate, but it caked on his jeans like clay/mud.

Here is what the "island" looked like this summer when we were in the process of buying. After lunch we changed tactics and decided to flatten out the circle that our driveway makes. You can't really tell from the pictures, but most of the "weeds" are over 5 ft tall. The island itself is about 100 ft by 100 ft and sort of horseshoe shaped. With the garage facing the round part of the horseshoe - more or less.

At some time, there were dirt mounds dumped on the island. So the varying height is 3 to 10 feet depending on where you are standing. The natural terrain there is not level. There is about a 2 foot drop with is divided by another riverette (actually the same one but at the other end). Jon spent the rest of the daylight hours moving the mounds of dirt and "flattening" the top area. He didn't get to finish, but made good progress.

Rehearsals for the play are also moving along. Jon and I are on the stage at the same time, so can't get pictures of that. But will try to get a picture of Diane in rehearsals tomorrow to put up.

Enjoy Fall!

What happened in October

2007-10-30T16:28:00.000-04:00

Well, Oct is nearly over so I'll try to make this a quick overview of the month. Jon's workload - client load - has finally slowed down.

My Dad and Ann came for a visit. They did a couple weeks driving tour of VT, MA, NH and ME. The first day they were here it rained all day, so we stayed in a played games, showed off the inside of the house. Dad was able to move up Diane's clothes hanger in her closet for her. Jon just hadn't had the time. The second day we went into Belfast and did a walking tour of the stores.

We found the local game store has an after school program open to anyone wanting to play non-electronic games. They have a meal and snacks available from 2-6 on school day. I'm not sure what the hours are on the weekends, but I know its adults only on Sun.

We also found out that the first Sat Dec is the big sale time. They open early for 30% everything in the stores. We were told to make a list a each store of what we want, so we can get in and out quickly and hit them all. At regular opening time it drops to 10% off.

Then we went to the fall festival, but that just turned out to be the Lions Club fall yard sale. We came back to the house, showed off the outside of our new place - slightly soggy, but not raining. Jon and Dad put in our new composter. Then we played more games.

Their last day they helped us unpack boxes - we got through nearly 30 with so many hands. Diane was thrilled as we found a bunch of her old computer games. And even more thrilled when she found out they played on one of our computers.

While they were here Dad suggested that we get some straw bales to put around the bottom of the mudroom to help keep it warmer this winter. Eventually we will close it in, but here's how it looks at the moment.

Since then, we went with our realtor and her daughter apple and pumpkin picking. It's a great place with a corn maze and hay rides as well.

As you can see from the picture at the top, she found a huge one again this year. It was big enough that we carved 3 pictures on it.

But now for our two bits of exciting news!

First, some investments that Jon had with one of his clients finally paid off - well part of it anyway. So we have decided to get our hot tub early. In order to do that, we have to prepare a pad for it to sit on and a walkway to it.

Our second bit of exciting news is we auditioned for parts in the community theater production of The Emperor's New Clothes - the musical. All of us will be in the show. Diane will be the young girl who "reveals the truth". I play Woman 1 who defends her husband (who is not in the play). And Jon plays Man who insults my husband.

Rehearsals started last night and will go until the end of Nov. The play runs 10 performances in very late Nov early Dec.

Welcome to Bunchberry Cottage

2007-10-29T13:05:00.000-04:00

Hello and welcome to Bunchberry Cottage.

We took possession of our new home on Sept 7, 2007. In order to keep friends and family up today on all the changes going on, we are going to try and keep a blog going.

First off, the name of our new home - we have not definitely decided to call it Bunchberry Cottage. First we have to wait and see if we have any bunchberries. We won't know until around April, but we think we spotted a few plants, so we are hopeful. Otherwise, we will have to go bushwhacking and see if we can find some to transplant, since you can't buy them in stores.

Now on to home life - our first month in the cottage was fully of the usual activity. Unpacking, unpacking, and unpacking. Within a week of our furniture arriving, so did one of the cats from the previous owners. They had warned us that one of their Mainecoons was on walkabout, and would we please catch it and return it to them.

So when it showed up at the back door, we did our best to catch it. Diane opened the back door and in it came. That was the easy part. Getting arrangements made to send it to it's new home was a bit trickier. For a few days we had a monster in the basement - or at least that's what our cats referred to it as. Meanwhile the cat sat at the top of the stairs explaining over and over that it did have full house privileges. It never seemed to notice that we weren't its owners.

After the Mainecoon went to its layover home on its way join it's family, we found out that it was their cat, but not the cat they told us about. Seems they had two cats on walkabout.

The following week we left for Florida for business and play. When we returned home, we were met by the second Mainecoon cat. He was as easy to catch as the first. We got out of the car and he laid down to have his tummy rub. So we had the second monster in the basement. He also didn't seem to notice that we weren't his owners. Same arrangements were made and soon this cat was off to join his buddy.

This time around Freya (our female Siamese) had a fit. We think she finally had too much stress - with the move, our leaving her, the two extra cats. She's nearly 16.5 years old and she doesn't cope with stress very well. It took several weeks, but we think we have her leveled out again.

And that brings us into Oct....