Since I wrote last I have been a little busy, some friends and I went to the Renaissance Fair out side of Charlotte in November,  we again had a really good time.  This guy was one of the characters that strolled around the grounds. 

I along with some friends have completed all but 5 miles of the New River Trail.  We started that little adventure in January.  It’s a 57 mile trail that is absolutely beautiful.  We started it in January and have walked what I call the the strait part of the trail, we still need to complete the Fries (pronounced Freeze) to Fries Junction section. It was nice to see the change in seasons.  We ended the walk with a nice brunch at The Draper Mercantile.

I went to the OBX for the first time since my mom died.  It rained the whole time but I will say I had a great time.  I spent the rainy days visiting my boys and some friends. While at one of my friends place I discovered a really good easy to make recipe for Brunswick Stew. My sister came up here to the mountains for a visit and after a busy day we were hungry but neither of us was in a mood to cook so this little concoction came in very handy.  It’s not the least bit gourmet but is quick, good and hot.  While on the OBX I also found a nice camp ground on Colington Island.  I plan on going to the beach twice a year and it will be nice to have my own place. 

Brunswick Stew

2 cans corn (14 oz)

2 cans of tomatoes (14 oz)

1 can of BBQ beef (10 oz)

1 can of BBQ pork (10 oz)

1 small can of chicken

Throw in a pot, cook on low, keep stirred.

Tabasco or Texas Pete (a little on the side)

I have been working on my camper.  I have replaced all the wood on the (L) driver side and am now working on the lift system.  I call this my equivalent to a boat with a hole in it.  I will say that I am enjoying working on the thing.  If nothing else I will have learned a lot about campers.  I am still looking for a better one.  The canvas for this thing is over $900.  If I can find a camper in good shape for less than that I will buy it.  I can break the one I have down into a trailer and sell that and the lift system and get just about what I have in it back.  It’s a lot of work but I don’t mind.

I have a new addition to my family. His name is Beriothien (Bear-ee-oh for short).  He is a black retriever mix, he is now 10 weeks old and is weighing in at 26lb.  I anticipate he will reach the 80-100lb range when he is full grown.  He is a very nice smart puppy.  He is already house broken I just need to teach him to leave my shoes alone.  He has not chewed any YET but I have come home a few times and found my shoes spread all over the house.  I have made the shoes less accessible to the puppy, hopefully he will forget about them.  As a bit of insurance I went to pet smart and bought a bunch of chew toys for the little bear.  The big boy and girl are tolerating the little one, the cat has started to come down from the loft, I am hoping for peace to return to the house in another week or so. 

It is hard to believe that tomorrow it will be 2013.  This year has gone by so fast.  I am already looking at seed catalogs (left over from last year) and planning my garden.  I want 2 crops of potatoes this year so I am researching them and collecting large containers to grow them in.  I have wood to cut for next year, house maintenance that will need to be done.  I am looking forward to some movies that are coming out, I saw “The Hobbit” and “Les Miserables” recently and they were both very good.  My man John McClain will be back this year as well as Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Jack the giant slayer looks good also.

I am looking forward to the new year.  I am optimistic and hopeful. I am hopeful the fiscal cliff is really just a hill.  I am hopeful that children will be safe. I am hopeful that the new year will be an uneventful one.  I feel that people are basically good and that given the opportunity they will be good.  I hope there is a lot of opportunity for good.  

It has been a long day for me.  I spent election day at work and it was a good day.  I very much like that the news folks decided to hold off on posting the exit polls until later in the day.  I am also as of this time  happy with the results, Obama seems to have won and Tim Kaine (Virginia) has also won.  I will go to bed and hope that things are not a total mess when I get up in the morning.  I had hoped that the win, which ever way it went, would be decisive and it seems at this time that it was, so lets hope that we can all move forward.

I am in the pink area

I woke up this morning to….. snow….. When I went to bed last night I expected to wake up to rain and wind, after all the weather gurus around here were saying we might get a few snow showers this evening.  Now in all honesty there is just a dusting of snow.  It looks a lot like what powered sugar would look like on a donut.  There is now a chance of 1-4 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow.  Not that bad but still messy.  I guess I will have to go down to the barn and get the snow shovel.  I don’t know why I did not think of that yesterday when I was getting ready for the “Frankenstorm” other wise known as Sandy.

I talked to my boys on the Outer Banks.  As of yesterday they had faired well.  It was just another storm to them. 

I will be glad when this storm is gone; it has been non stop news for the past week.  One good thing about it, the storm knocked the presidential election off the front “page” of the news for a while!!!

I am sitting here in my mountain home at 7:30 pm the end of October with my windows and doors open.  It was in the upper 70’s today as it has been for nearly the whole month.  I thought earlier this month that the cool weather was here but it seemed to just be a blip on the weather map.  Tomorrow is forecast to be even warmer.  If the weather gurus are correct we should be back to more seasonal temperatures by the first of next week. 

I moved to the mountains to live in the summer of 2008 and with the exception of the first part of the winter 2009-2010 the winters have been pretty warm and the summers almost hot.  The old timers around here comment on how unusual the weather has been.  A lot has been said to play down the effects of climate change but from my point of view it is real and we as a society need to accept that like it or not things are changing and we need to prepare for that change. Sticking your head in the sand doesn’t do a whole lot of good when that new house you built on the North Carolina coast gets flooded or you don’t have water in that new house you built in Nevada. 

this is a link to the Frontline program on the climate debate

 Climate of Doubt | FRONTLINE | PBS

I have been wanting to point this out all day; today is

10-11-12

Few people alive now will ever see these numbers in a date again.
Some folks are looking forward to the next sequence this year 12-12-12.
Just think after 12-12-12 there will not be any sequential dates until the next century.  There will be the date 11-12-13 but no 13-13-13.  After 12-12-12 dates will be just dates on a calendar again that is until the next century opens up a new opportunity for folks to plan special events on dates like 01-01-01

This is where the chimney goes into the sealing.  I expected  it to be packed full but it was only a big hand full and there were no egg fragments or bird droppings so I am guessing that the bird that did this work gave up and went elsewhere.

This is the top of the stove.

I set October 1^st aside each year to clean my stovepipe/chimney out.  This year I did not get to it until the 3^rd but the point is that the stove does not get used until the pipe is cleaned out.  The photos accompanying this post shows why it is so important to clean out the chimney.  I repeat the cleaning out the stovepipe/chimney routine on January 1^st, just to help keep my mind at ease.  That is down from my every 2 month routine when I first got the stove.  I figure that if the pipe is bad in January I can always increase the cleaning routine.

Every year around here more than one house suffers smoke damage and some even burn down due to a faulty chimney.  By cleaning out my chimney a few times a season I get to inspect it and can correct any problems before they become major.

In other news the weather right now is GREAT……. cool evenings and pleasant days.  Weather Underground is saying that the temps should get into the LOW 30’s this weekend so I guess I will spend some time in the garden today.  I have some plastic that I can use to cover the plants I have out there but they won’t need to be covered until this weekend. I won’t have time to set things up then so now is the time to prepare.  I was reviewing the first frost from last year and this year the frost seems to be coming earlier.  Could be a cold winter.  I heard their going to name winter storms now……. I prefer the way folks have described the winter storms of the past, you know the Halloween storm of 1991, blizzard of 1993 that sounds dramatic, but who knows maybe I will have a T shirt that says I survived the Gandalf storm of 2013.

I will be peddling around on the property today.  I was scheduled to work today but they did not need me so yay for some unscheduled “free” time. As I said above this is a good day for the garden and to get a few chores that I have been putting off.  Its going to be a busy weekend so this unscheduled “down time” will be nice.

Today in paradise it felt like fall.  It was cloudy and rainy and the air was cool.  I went out this morning as I always do and looked at the mountain.  There was a bank of fog obscuring the mountain but the trees were starting to really show their colors.  The photo above is not the best but it will give the viewer an ideal of what the beginning of fall looks like here in paradise.

I woke up this morning to a stuffy nose unfortunately it was not stuffy enough. I got a big whiff of essence de pew from Pepe Le Pew.  Skunk in the morning is not the best way to wake up.  It seems to me that in the spring and fall the skunks become more noticeable and the girl dog seems to notice them a little too much.  This morning the dogs were greatly disappointed; I restricted them to the deck and a little pee yard. The girl dog has a habit getting skunked and I did not have time for THAT this morning!!!  They will survive and if all goes well and Pepe stays away, tomorrow morning they will be able to have their early morning run.

We got that frost they were talking about.  It was a light frost seen mostly on the medal furniture on the deck and on the jeep top.  The flowers on the deck did OK as can be seen by the photo of some petunias.

We have our first frost warning of the season here in paradise.  If we get into the 30's tonight it will be a week earlier than last year. The trees and sky have been telling me that fall was coming.  The trees with their fall colors and falling leaves and the sky with its day time change in intensity and night time stars that bring Orion into my winter sky view.  The deer have already changed into their darker coats that will help keep them warm and safe from predictors. I have brought in all my tropical plants so the bouganvilla and the ficus will be fine.  I will be cleaning the chimney and bringing up wood in preparation for a cold winter. Fall is a time of change, a time to get ready for the winter to come. I love the cool days and cold nights.  I love watching the migrating birds.  I love the cycle of the seasons up here in the mountains.  

moms best friend Lorraine and mom they look almost like sisters

Mom

Today is the last day of summer.  I will say that this summer was not all I had hoped it would be.  I had dreams of spending my time relaxing close to home almost carefree sadly that is not what happened.

Summer started off nice enough but at the end of June my mother became sick and entered the hospital.  This was not that unusual, mom had kidney problems and she would get admitted for a kidney infection, be treated and sent back home.  Often but not always I would pick her up and take her home and spend the first night back with her.  She seemed to get better in fact I was heading her way to take her home when she got much worse.  I got a call from the hospital saying she had a stroke and then coded.  The staff at Norfolk General got her back and again she seemed to get better.

 I went to the hospital and stayed with mom until she was well on the mend.  Things were looking good and at that time she had no neurological deficits and In fact she was so much better that I had come back to the mountains to get a day in at work and then pick up my trailer and head back to Norfolk, mom was going to go into rehab and I wanted her to have her motorized wheel chair hence I needed the trailer.  I got home on Saturday afternoon.  On Sunday morning I called my mom and she seemed fine.  She was looking forward to getting out and going to rehab.  When I tried to call her back around noon I was not able to get her so I called the nurse’s desk and was told that my mom had gone into respiratory and coronary arrest.  She had coded for a second time.

Reviving a person who codes is a very violent thing.  Compressions break ribs and bruise the heart, the brain and other vital organs are denied oxygen which leads to other problems and the meds used can often have long term effects that are hard to fully understand.  When CPR is done out of the hospital to a relativity healthy person there is a survival rate of between 15 and 30%.  In hospital the chances of a person who has been recessitated more than once of going home is less than 10%. There are a lot of factors that enter into this but the plain fact is that a person that is recessitated more that once is most likely not going home.  I am a nurse and I work in the emergency department I know this and watching my mom on the ventilator for the second time was not easy.

I called the family and had those that could come. 

Believe it or not after making the calls mom seemed to get better again. She got off the vent and again with no apparent deficits. She seemed to pick up a bit after my brother and sister and sister in law got there.  Things seemed pretty good; I was thinking mom had beaten the odds.   Her doctor a wonderful man brought me down to earth.  Her lab work was not looking all that great and he suggested palliative care. 

After talking to mom, she was totally oriented and capable of making her own decisions, we decided to stop all care that did not add to moms comfort.  Thursday we contacted home health and made arrangements to get her home.  She was going to go home on Tuesday, three weeks after starting this little adventure, and either get better of die at home.  Friday night mom was in high spirits, she was tired but alert.  Again she seemed to be doing well.  We all went to our rooms; Norfolk General has rooms for family to get a good night sleep, the first time she was by herself in over a week.  At 4am Saturday morning we got a call saying that mom had died.

Mom was born on August 30^th 1933 and she died July 14^th 2012.  She was almost 79 years old.  I will miss her.

The rest of the summer has been spent handling my moms affairs and coming to grips with her loss.  At times mom was the bane of my existence.   She kept me busy with her honey do lists, I never knew when I was done because she never told me all that was on it and the way she spent money drove me up the wall but she was the best mom she could be, she seemed to be happy and she had good friends. Every one I have spoken to has had nothing but nice things to say about my mom.  Mom will be missed.

I am still here.  

As I have said I am going to be staying close to home this summer and with so many great things to do around here it is promising to be a busy summer.  Last night I went to Claytor Lake for their annual Beach Festival, I met some friends who had been there all day so I was able to enjoy an early evening dinner and nighttime fireworks with out having to do any of the work finding a place or setting up. 

My understanding is that Claytor Lake Beach Festival is a yearly event; I could tell from the crowd that it is a successful event.  It is nice to see so many people of different cultures and ages together enjoying themselves.  We were seated next to some foreign Virginia Tec students.  They were perfect strangers but by the time it came to watch the fireworks we were “friends” they were patient with me and answered my nosey questions about their language and what they were studying.  Don’t believe the news the world is full of very nice people.

Yesterday was a busy one. Not only did I go to Claytor Lake but  I built a gate for the garden and cleaned out some “flower” beds.  I have not been that successful with flowers but I do keep trying.  Today looks like another good day; I am going to spend it getting some mowing done and doing some mulching.  I love working outside but I will be needing a rain day soon, the house is getting a little ratty looking……

Today from most places on earth we humans can see a solar rarity called the transit of Venus.  It will not be seen on this planet again until 2117 but from Mars we could see it on August 19, 2030.  Just thought you should know.

NASA - 2012 Transit of Venus

 morning view

farmer Tim getting ready for his long day at work

It’s a beautiful day here in paradise but I will be spending it at work.  At one time I would have said that I work in hell to live in paradise but lately both jobs have been good.  It’s promising to be a good week coming up and after today I have a lot of time off to enjoy it.

There is a lot going on in the world today.  The news as always is just plane depressing and with the election “heating up”, ( boys and girls if you think the political BS has been bad hold on to your hat its about to go to warp), I find myself avoiding the news except in the morning and late afternoon after all I do want to be informed. It is important to have an understanding of what is going on not an obsession with it.  So I have been here in paradise piddling around the property, working in the garden, fixing up this and that and in general keeping my inner self calm.  I am making a conscious effort to remain in place this year and allow my roots to dig in deeper and grow stronger.  I feel at peace on this little piece of land.  I know some of the trees personally.  I can smell the difference in the air from where I live and where I work.  The water tastes good, the birds sing, frogs and crickets croak and chirp and the fire fly’s entertain at night.  I have not been “doing” much this year just living in my little piece of paradise.

I'm still here boys and girls just been keeping busy I have been gardening, hiking and repairing things on the property. Life is good.  I will catch things up soon.

Well hi from paradise it has been a long time since I blogged.  This winter has been very mild here.  I say it is because I bought a wood splitter last year and was ready for winter.  The weather gurus will give you a more technical answer for the mild weather but I still think it is the wood splitter.

To me the mild winter has also lifted the spirits of the folks around me.  I live in a fairly depressed part of the state of Virginia that was hit pretty hard by the present recession.  A mild winter with a lower power bill has helped as had the return of some jobs.  A few factories and plants have opened back up in the area so people are starting to feel a little more optimistic.  The optimism is guarded but it is still there.   

I am feeling the effects of spring fever. I have project plans for the spring starting with a retaining wall in front of my deck.  I want to fill in the slope and terrace it.  That will allow me to walk on the area and get the mower around to the side of the house. It will also allow me to better entertain.  I won’t have to worry about people falling and rolling down the hill.  I’m only raising the area about 2 feet but it will give me about 10 to 12 feet of usable space in front of the deck.  This terrace will step down to another terrace that will hold my bench swing; it should turn out really nice.  It is a lot of work but I enjoy getting out there and working in the fresh air and open sky. 

The girl dog loves the snow

The weather folks told us there would be some flurries last night, the flurries started around 7pm by 8pm there had to be an inch of “flurries” on the ground and this morning there is around 3 inches on my deck.  Guess where the snow shovel is, not on the deck.  The dogs love the snow and I am enjoying my coffee just setting here looking at the winter beauty. I am lucky, I have my warm wood stove and my cozy cabin with big windows so I can enjoy that beauty in comfort.  Of course the dogs and I will have to walk down to the barn to get the shovel. 

When President Nixon signed into law the national 55 mph speed limit it was meant with a lot of resistance.The law was meant to help ease the fuel shortages that were happening in the 70's and decrease the incidence of highway accidents. I know I have a fondness for 60mph and I enjoy that 70mph out there on hwy 81 but for the past few weeks I have been experimenting with my personal gas consumption. This is the World Wide Web so I won’t go into detail with my driving habits but I compared my normal driving habits with driving the speed limit and not going over 55.  The results have not been phenomenal but there is an improvement in my gas mileage. I drive a Jeep wrangler and around here in the mountains I have been getting 17 to 18 mpg. Slowing down has increased that to 18.5 to 19 mpg. As I said not a phenomenal improvement but that is a 5% increase in fuel economy. It takes less than 5 minutes longer to get to work and at 55mph a Wrangler is not as noisy by a long shot as at 60-70mph (interstate 81) so I save a little gas and am more relaxed when I get to work.  Will I always go 55, probably not, sometimes I will have to use the interstate ;-) but I will slow down when I can that 1 extra mile a gallon saves me about $3.00 a tank and since I fill up on average every 5 days that about $220 a year.

It seems that every few weeks a fright train of weather breezes by leaving just enough mixed precipitation to cause trouble then it goes a way and things warm up again.  We had a wicked wind with a mix of rain & sleet last night and now as I write there is a light snow falling.  It will be an interesting drive to work. 

Today it is quite cold and windy.  Today is one of the first truly cold days of this winter season making it a good day to reflect on another year that has gone by. I sit here at my computer watching the sun light up the bark of bare trees and the chickadee’s scuttle about unaware of the lurking cat looking at them from the porch step.  It looks cold outside but it is beautiful and I am thankful to have this view.

This past year has been a busy one; trips to the beach, the mountains and to New Orleans highlighted this year.  There were also many short excursions to places near by but equally fun.  I am very fortunate to have good friends that don’t mind me tagging along on their adventures and who don’t mind tagging along on some of mine. I did not get much done on the homestead this year but there is always next year.

Next year being this year I think I will concentrate more on the home front.  I will stick closer to home.  I do want to take one trip to Florida to visit a dear friend for a few days and I do have to go to the beach at least 2 times this year but other than that I will keep my adventures very close to home. 

Happy New Year.