Category: General

Support Services

The blog has been quiet for a few days as I traveled on Sunday to Fairfax County, VA to provide support services for eldest son’s family. T started a new job 2 Monday’s ago at GMU, W started her Art Camp teaching job the same day and that was L’s last day of 3rd grade. This week he had an adventure camp that required drop off and pick up for the camp bus at times they couldn’t possible manage. As I have blogged before, they do not have a car. Between the cost, the traffic, and the availability of public transportation, they generally don’t need one. They get where they need to go by walking, biking or taking Metro system busses and trains. Grandmom to the rescue. Being retired has it’s benefits and since the camp bus drop off point is the direction I am willing to drive, I came up to help. My sole responsibility is getting L to the bus by 8 a.m. and picking him up at 5 p.m. That leaves a lot of unencumbered, unscheduled time for me. I voluntarily fix dinner and keep up with basic chores. I have spent lots of time knitting and reading. My current book is The Goldfinch. Monday I visited a yarn shop we spotted on our way to dinner Sunday evening. They were so welcoming that after buying some yarn, I sat and knitted with them for a couple of hours. It is too hot to work on the wool/silk sweater I brought, so a started a scarf with the new yarn.

With the heat index in triple digits, I haven’t wanted to be outside much, so I have tackled a few chores here. L will be excited to see that Grandmom cleaned his room. He has so many crates of Lego’s and they were everywhere. They are all re-crated, books re-shelved and trash picked up. I sent him upstairs with clean clothes the other afternoon and found them on his floor. I figured it was distracted 9 year old behavior but realized he had more clothes in his dresser than he had room for. I sorted through the dresser, taking out all of the too small clothes, sorted winter from summer, undies and socks from shirts and pants and put it back together minus the out grown clothes, two bags full.

While I am here, Jim is home critter sitting with these dogs and chickens.

July 2, 2014
A benefit of Retirement

When I used to be employed outside the house, housecleaning and laundry always had to be done on weekends or in short spurts after work. This past weekend was spent in doing more enjoyable things, going to the farmer’s market, playing outside in the dirt and with two big dogs that live in the house, there is a constant need to vacuum and dust.

Today, while Jim went off on his motorcycle for a ride, I tackled all three floors of our house. Sweeping, damp mopping, dusting, cleaning and scrubbing, floors, tables, bathrooms, kitchen. It looks good, but I know that by tomorrow, there will already be dog hair and dust again.

The injured pullet is still hanging in there, but I am afraid she may still fail, her injuries are so extreme. She misses her siblings and perks up when I walk past her crate. There is no way that I can put her in with them. The Americana, in spite of me having clipped a wing, still is figuring out how to get from coop pen into the cull pen over a 4 foot fence. I don’t see anywhere that she can get under it, but she shouldn’t be able to fly over. If she is so desperate to be with Cogburn, I’m leaving her there until he gets moved back with the Buff’s.

June 2, 2014
For Mother’s Day, We Went to War

War, West Virginia that is. As spring broke and Jim brought out his motorcycle, he set off one day to follow a route that had been given him at one of the dealerships while looking for a bigger bike. Somehow, he zigged when he should have zagged and missed the correct turn to do the ride and after thinking he had somehow gotten a bit out of his way, he found himself in War, West Virginia. After many hours, he finally returned home and we Goggled it to find out more about it and in doing so, I discovered a new to me, local author. Michael Abraham has written a number of fiction and non fiction books all set in the Appalachian region in which we live. His topics covering the heritage of this region.

The Appalachian region is rich in music culture and includes the Crooked Road, a music trail of venues that feature the local bluegrass and folk music of the area. This part of Southwest Virginia and Southern West Virginia are also areas from which a glut of coal is extracted. The industrial rise and increased use of electric power in homes caused an influx of population as miners worked in factory towns to extract the mineral at the expense of their health and often their lives. As mechanization was improved and fewer miners were needed, most of these towns began to fail. As you drive through the regions, abject poverty is evident. Homes that were built by the mine owners and rented to the miners are run down, many abandoned, stores boarded up and Main Streets vacant.

Each of these coal towns has a still functioning or abandoned tipple, the structure is used to clean the coal then load it into rail cars by the hundreds that rumble across Virginia to the coast to be loaded into ships and exported overseas, much of it to China.

This is the tipple at a deep mine, though mechanized, the mining crew still works underground. Coal developed in seams of varying thickness thousands of years ago. The seams are like icing in a layer cake and in deep mines, the miners dig down into a seam, reinforcing the tunnel as they go, extracting the coal and sending it to the surface. When the mine is spent and they are worked back out, the layers were often collapsed to prevent accidental cave ins. This is dangerous work, but causes less impact on the ground level environment.

Mountain top removal or strip mining is also prevalent in this region. It came about as a means to use fewer miners, more mechanization and caused a devastation to the area’s environment. The trees are stripped off the top of a mountain and the soil and rock are blasted out and dumped into the valleys to reach the coal which is then trucked in dumpers too large for traditional roads to the tipples. These mountain top removal mines have dams that hold huge ponds to clean the coal and there have been many accidents where the retaining dam has failed and in a few cases wiped out a town downstream (http://www.usmra.com/buffalo_creek.htm). The impact of this type of mining is the eradication of streams, deforestation, devastation of wildlife habitats.

Few of the young people in these towns stay. Those that do are in one of the most impoverished areas of the United States. After reading the novel War, WV by Abraham and doing more research about mining, I wanted to see the results. Today we took a road trip after our brunch and drove the loop that my husband rode so that I could see it for myself. There are many more pictures taken today, the mountain top removal photo used is from the internet as the only one of those mines we could see from the road was from a steep mountain road with a series of hairpin turns and no place to stop and take a picture. Today was quite a learning experience and makes me thankful all the good that I have been given.

May 11, 2014
New Friend

Upon my move to the mountains, I quickly met a group of knitters who became my new local friends. After I had been here for a few years, I took a drop spindle class and thus began a love of spinning. One day, leaving the public library with my husband, I saw a group of folks in one of the community rooms spinning and socializing, as I looked in they invited me to watch and join them as they meet there every Thursday that the room is available and I began attending not regularly, but met some new people.

Last Friday, one of those ladies that I did not know every well, fell down a slope behind her house and crushed her shoulder. Fortunately she had her cell phone on her and had the foresight to call a friend who is also in the group and was gotten to the hospital where she had 3 hours of surgery to repair the damage. This accident showed just what a tragedy can do within a group. Quickly a group email was sent out letting everyone know and the two friends that got her to the hospital and stayed with her while there, coordinated efforts to assist her as it was her dominate hand and she will be severely restricted for the next 8 weeks. None of her adult children live in the area, but have made arrangements to be here next week. I volunteered to help as I could with transportation, making a meal or two, or sitting with her. Today I was given the opportunity to take her lunch and stay with her for 5 hours this afternoon and she is delightful. It turns out that we were both raised in Virginia Beach, attended the same high school, though she was several years behind me. Both have 3 adult children and grandchildren. One of each of our children live in Florida and one in Northern Virginia. We both moved from the beach to the mountains as we aren’t fans of the beach and love the mountains and small towns. We are both knitters, crocheters, and spinners.

While I was there, another spinner brought two prepared evening meals for her and her nighttime helper.

She was so grateful to have someone to visit and talk to as she heals and I am grateful to have gotten to know her. Having watched my husband heal from a humerus break two years ago, I know that she was not comfortable, but she never complained. I think that I benefited from the afternoon just as much as she and know I have joined a caring group of friends.

May 6, 2014
Midweek Issues

ACKKKK! I have been having cell phone issues, heating up so hot I can’t carry it in my pocket, holding a charge for only 4 to 5 hours with the Data turned off and the phone is only 8 months old. Yesterday afternoon on my way to my knit group, hubby and I returned to the cellular phone store where it was purchased with the idea that we were probably going to have to purchase me a new phone. The agent said that our model the Samsung 3 did develop those issues with the update, but that resetting it to the factory settings would probably cure that. He asked me had I ever done a factory reset and I said no. He backed up my contacts to the SD card, we checked that all my photos were on the SD card but never, ever, did he ask about my calendar.

I figured any of the other apps that I use could easily be reinstalled. He reset my phone and worked me through setting up the google account. As the store is 2 doors down from Starbucks, I immediately added that app and rewarded myself with a glass of iced roibus tea. The phone held its charge though the evening with my friends, didn’t get warm. I was excited, until this morning when I checked my calendar to see if we had anything scheduled today and discovered nothing but national holidays and family and friends birthdays. ACKKKK! I have a paper calendar on my fridge with that info. I don’t carry a paper calendar anymore since I retired, when I used to carry a Franklin Planner every step I took. I am a retired senior citizen, but I do like my electronics and have been frustrated that my phone calendar did not sync with my Google calendar, but not wanting to input the data in both, have just used the phone calendar. I know I have appointments scheduled 6 months to a year ahead and now I don’t know when. Perhaps I am going to have to revert to the old fashioned paper calendar on the fridge. If smart phones are so smart, why am I calendar free now?

I have now installed the Google Calendar app and will hide the default calendar and hope that it will sync to my other devices.

April 24, 2014
Earth Day

Mother Earth should be treated more kindly, not just on Earth Day, but everyday. We try to do our part, recycling (even in our rural area), composting either in the compost piles or through the help of the chickens, keeping our property and the road front clear of litter, combining errands to reduce the carbon footprint by driving less. Planting trees in the non pasture parts of the farm.

Many rural folk have a different mindset about trash, I have blogged about this before (http://wp.me/p3JVVn-l3), but in addition to keeping junk and making trash piles, there is the roadside litter; empty soda and alcohol cups, bottles, and cans, fast food containers, cigarette packages (there are a lot of irresponsible smokers in this county). Periodically, someone will take it upon themselves either out of civic duty or court imposed community service to walk down the beautiful mountain road and collect bag after orange bag of litter and leave them for the county services to collect. When we lived in the city, we would see some of this too, along with the ashtray dumps in the street gutters where all of that nastiness washed down into the storm drains and eventually into the river and ocean. Before retirement, we lived in a coastal city and often took our kayaks into one of the hundreds of canals, creeks, rivers and bays available. After the first trip or two, we began to each carry a large garbage bag in our kayak and would collect as much as we could on a trip. I guess this shows that it isn’t just rural folk, they just have city ordinances that prevent the larger collection of yard junk.

How difficult is it to keep a litter bag in your car? To hold on to the fast food bag until you reach a trash receptacle. To think before you throw your butt or ashtray full of butts out the window. Recycling and anti litter are taught in schools as soon as children begin school. This is the responsibility of all of us. Do your part, be responsible. Don’t just celebrate Earth Day by planting a tree, make it an everyday commitment.

April 22, 2014
Pet Peeves
- To place an order in a restaurant and have the server come back later and tell you what you ordered is not available while your table mate’s order has been started.
- Having the driver in front of you change lanes without a signal, or worse, go from the left lane to the off ramp with no signal right in front of you.
- Automated voice services on all business phone numbers with no clue how to reach a real voice.
- Waiting in a bank for the next banker (not teller) and have the banker walk by and say they will be with you in a moment, then minutes later, walk by you and out of the bank to lunch while you still wait.
- In a store, find the item you want in short supply on the shelf, ask the clerk to check for more, find out there is plenty in the stockroom, but the stockroom clerk informing you that they won’t help you and to come back the next day.
- Sticky foods like peanut butter packed in jars with shoulders so you can’t get it all out or clean the empty container.
Did I experience one or more of these in the past day or two, of course? Are there more, oh yeah? What are your pet peeves.
April 8, 2014
Spring cleaning has commenced

Yesterday, after my sleepless night and waking to hurricane force winds and blowing snow, we took the pups to doggie camp for 24 hours and drove 2 hours north east of here to meet some friends from Virginia Beach. The goal was for the guys to test ride a motorcycle or two at Demo Days at a Harley Davidson dealer. As we trekked, we drove out of the snow on our ridge and then about 45 minutes from our destination, drove into a blizzard with rapidly accumulating snow and wondering what on earth we were doing out in it. At a rest stop, there were 4 inches wet snow on the ground. When we reached our destination, there were flurries, but nothing on the ground but it was cold and wet. It looked like the ride wouldn’t happen, but the roads dried off and indeed they left with a group of about a dozen riders on a 12 mile test run and came back in like popcicles. After a delightful, late lunch with our friends, we each headed off in opposite directions to return to our homes.

This morning, we retrieved the pups and treated them to a car ride and their favorite hamburgers while we waited to see how warm it would really get today as they were predicting mid 60’s. Once home, Jim took off on his motorcycle and I set about on spring cleaning, starting with the garage. This winter, it has housed the motorcycle, the chicken tractor, a lawn mower, the back deck furniture, the huge black animal water trough that held firewood until the chicks needed it as a larger brooder and the random tools, scrap wood, etc. It was a disaster and there is no way to work on the workbench much less park a car inside.

I started by selling a couple of weeks ago, the Husky workbench that had been in our Virginia Beach house before our move to the mountains. As eldest son had built in two very beefy workbenches at different heights, the other one was not only not needed, but added to the clutter as it became a place to set more things.

That is the only time since it moved to the mountains that it was empty. Today I started on the lower built in as it had all the tools and boxes of items removed from the workbench I had sold. Our garage is a log structure that has logs that match the house in appearance on the outside, but have a flat interior surface. Son took advantage of that and added many hand made hangers, hefty shelves, and nails for tools that didn’t go on the workbench or have cases. I added a few more nails, moved 4 wooden crates of scrap wood off the beefy shelf and started organizing.

The scrap wood is now on the floor pushed up against the wall where it can actually be reached for small projects or fire starter wood. The boxed tools were put up on the shelf, labeled on the end so I can tell at a glance which DeWalt box is which and a plastic tub was placed up there with all of the loose sandpaper in it. It a tool didn’t go into my tool kit, it got hung on the wall, stone masonry tools and painting tools were put in plastic totes and pushed under the workbench along with the compressor. The longer scrap wood was neatly arranged up against a huge wooden platform that son built for his artist wife but doesn’t have room for at his present apartment, the dog cages were folded and placed hard up against the same wall. The chicks who were making a mess of the basement in the wire dog cage were put in the huge animal trough with their food, water, a couple of perches and their heat lamp. They can’t get out, the tub holds the heat well and they seem happier, I know I am. Chicken feed was moved out from the space in front of the workbench and I can actually access a surface, my vice and my handtools.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another great day, so I plan to purchase a couple more rolls of fence and a few more fence posts and finish the chicken run as they can get out of the less secure part that I did not complete two weeks ago, try to install a gate and move the chicken tractor out of the garage for the cull birds, giving me enough space to try to clean up the taller workbench as well as organizing the garden tools that are hung on the side wall where the build in shelf unit and tall workbench are located. I currently have all of my garden tools and all of eldest son’s. I may separate them and put his in a big plastic garbage bin and put them in the back of the barn to store them and see if I can get some other unused items out of the garage. It would be nice to be able to park at least one car in there with the motorcycle.

Somewhere during these efforts, I need to plant my peas in the garden.

March 31, 2014
Clean up and Destash

It is almost springtime, though today’s thermometer didn’t feel like it. The Forsythia in town is blooming. We will not see ours bloom for another few weeks at least. The fruit trees are budding out and pruning is in order tomorrow. The coming of spring will empty the garage of the deck furniture, the chicken tractor and some of the gardening stuff. When we moved our household goods to our retirement homestead we moved a portable workbench that has sat and collected clutter for the past 6 years. There are also some duplicate power tools and other items. The garage has two very sturdy built in workbenches, organizational shelving to store coolers, camping gear, paint cans and organizer boxes for nails, screws, nuts and bolts.

Inside the house is a stash of yarn and fiber I will not use, stuff that I won, was given to me, or is extra from completed projects, some knitting books that I no longer want, and my spinning wheel that I wish to replace with a slightly more advanced one.

In my spring cleaning mode, I have started listing these items on Craigslist, Ravelry and Ebay to reduce the clutter and to help fund the spinning wheel that I covet.

Once the items have been sold and spring arrives to move the gardening and deck items back outside, there will be a major garage cleaning and reorganization so that the built in workbenches can actually be used and so that coolers and garden tools can be more easily accessed.

My theory is that my junk is someone else’s treasure.

March 13, 2014
Not for the Faint of Heart

My Dad is a spry 90+ year old. He still does most of their cooking, helps with housework, does some of his own yard work and delivers “Meals on Wheels” to folks decades younger than he. He walks daily, hasn’t smoked since the first Surgeon General’s warning in 1964 and is much healthier than would be suspected for one his age. His side of the family tend to exceed the average age rule, his grandmother living to 94, his mother to 88, his brother into his 80s.

This makes me young, right? After all, I am a senior citizen, eligible for Social Security and Medicare, but still young. Sometimes I feel like I can still climb mountains, have learned to ride a horse in the past couple of years, garden, drive a tractor and mow acres of land. But this winter is making me feel not so young. As a late 20 something, I separated a shoulder skiing. As a mid 50 something, I broke a wrist roller blading with my daughter. The shoulder was before they sent you to a specialist and physical therapy for such injuries. The wrist was not cast correctly and has a 17º healed displacement. Unfortunately, they aren’t the same arm and both are aggravating me this winter. The wrist has encouraged arthritic deterioration of my wrist bones. This was causing me pain and after a couple of steroid shots I agreed to surgery to remove the most damaged wrist bone at the base of my thumb. This has caused the muscles to atrophy, reducing the strength of my hand and sadly only temporarily provided any relief. The pain affects my radial nerve so I also have pain in my elbow and my shoulder. Not wanting to take NSAIDs regularly, I have tried capsaicin cream, OTC herbal supplements that supposedly reduce inflammation, Tart Cherry juice and just about any other alternative. I haven’t tried acupuncture, nor have I been willing to return to the orthopedist, though I wonder if there is anything else he could do other than more steroid shots which I also want to avoid. To add insult to injury, it has also intensified trigger finger in my ring finger on that hand.

I’m not ready to accept aging, I’m still too young.

March 6, 2014