Blog Your Blessings: Good, Good, Good, Good, Bad

Good: The innernets came back last Friday. Very late on Friday because Comcast did not know they had sent me a new modem and had the old modem on record and accused me of buying a third party modem. So the confusion and paperwork literally took hours to unravel. But it's done and it's working well. I can blog again!

Good: Vermont Public Radio has two stations: VPR and VPR Classical. VPR went to talk radio a year and a half ago, leaving me without my tunes. They had plans to build a transmission station in Island Pond and finally it began broadcasting this fall. But I couldn't get the signal here between mountains. When Matt moved in, he brought a stereo with him, and even the new stereo couldn't get the signal. A week ago, I went to Radio Shack down in St. Johnsbury and bought a $7 antenna and now my music is back! My Saturday Afternoon at the Opera (from the Met Opera) is back. Rigoletto was last Saturday's performance.

Good: My Carpenter Pump Reed Organ was finally delivered last Saturday (above photo)! This is eleven months after I bought it. I broke some of the decorative trim on it. And it doesn't play. But I have it.

Good: After being sick with colds, bouts of bronchitis, and laryngitis since October 1, I am now healthy. My voice occasionally disappears still, and at night it is very weak. But every day sees improvement. This has been a tough winter so far.

Bad: My teaching position is being cut 50% when my contract ends on August 1. I have six months to find another 0.5 FTE position or simply another 1.0 FTE position. The depression is here: unemplyment in the Northeast Kingdom is now at 10% (source: The Barton Chronicle).

I admit that I was knocked off balance when I was told about the cut. But I am still very fortunate and as I work myself back, I will continue to count my blessings, keep my faith, and imagine the possibilities for my future.

Thank you for visiting.

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Technorati Tags: Carpenter Organs, Brattleboro, Vermont, VPR, VPR Classical
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Blog Your Blessings: Ready for Winter

Four cords of firewood are in the garage; the wood/oil furnace is cleaned; the firebox in the furnace was rebuilt; the CO detectors and fire detectors are fixed and the chimney will be cleaned tomorrow. Fire extinguishers still need to be purchased. The windows are nearly all sealed with plastic. We are ready and feeling cozy. We will still be using oil and are hoping that the price of it is not prohibitive this year. But whatever the price, we will only deal in cash and we will come out of the winter without debt.

We are not suffering as other families are and I am feeling blessed.
Click on the photo to view it full-size in a new window.
Thank you for visiting.

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Blog Your Blessings: Autumn in Vermont

Nuff said.

My Shadow Lake Set on Flickr.
Click on the photo to view it full-size in a new window.
Thank you for visiting.

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Blog Your Blessings: Extrinsic Motivators

The weather has been beautiful this weekend and I have been stuck inside studying (and moaning about it) — although I did get outside for some great photos yesterday morning; this photo is Sentinel Rock, a glacial erratic in Westmore. I took a class this summer (Teaching Mathematics to ADD/ADHD/LD Students, paid by my contract) and am now taking two six week workshops (Tools for Building Math Concepts and Algebraic Reasoning at the Math Forum, both paid for by the National Science Foundation). Instead of doing my homework during the rainy season in August, I am forced to do it now. I love doing the assignments — so why didn't I? 

This year we are required to write professional goals for ourselves at school. I am going to read Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma and Fostering Algebraic Thinking by Mark Driscoll. I've had these books for ages and have not read them. Books such as these energize and enrich my teaching and I find them fascinating. So why didn't I read them? 

My final blessing is my camera — an intrinsic motivator. Over the years, the camera has become a comforting companion for me. Behind the view finder I find focus and purpose beyond my professional life. This week I was finally published in Humanities (September/October 2008, page 19) — the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  The photo is of the round barn at the Shelburne Museum that I took on a school field trip a year and a half ago. The photo is not in the online edition of the magazine, but the print edition has my name on it. I think I want to subscribe to this beautiful magazine out of thanks, but it costs $24 a year. I want to thank Maria Biernik at NEH for finding and using the photo.

My motivators — extrinsic and intrinsic — enrich my life.

My Sentinel Rock State Park Set on Flickr

My Shelburne Museum Set on Flickr

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Blog Your Blessings: Memorial Day: Dying Alone

Photographed 24 May 2008

CHAS. DEVEREUX Co. F 11 Vt. Reg't DIED at Baltimore, Md. Nov. 17, 1864 AEd 33 yrs, 4 ms

Charles Devereux was born in some unknown place in 1831. He enlisted in the Vermont Volunteer Infantry on August 6, 1862 in Barton and was mustered in on September 1, 1862 as a Private in Co. F of the 11th Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to Corporal on May 1, 1863. Charles was mortally wounded in action at the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864 (with twenty-three other Vermont Volunteers).

The Battle of Cedar Creek was in Middletown, Virginia. Every single Vermont man in service in 1864 fought at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Charles's 11th Vermont Regiment served in the VI Corps of the Army of the Shenandoah commanded by Major General Philip Sheridan. They were in the 2nd Division, 2nd Brigade and were among the first sent into battle. The Army of the Shenandoah had 31,610 men and 90 guns in battle. Five hundred sixty were killed, 3025 were wounded, and 1770 were taken prisoner. The Confederate Army fought with approximately 21,102 men (exact figures are unknown) and 40 guns. Killed and wounded were 1860 people, and 1500 were missing at the end of the battle. All suffered horribly.

Charles died of his wounds in Baltimore, Maryland on November 18, 1864 — hopefully in a hospital. He was buried in Welcome O Brown Cemetery in Barton, Vermont, were I found his grave yesterday. There are no photographs, family, obituaries or memories of Charles anywhere except for his gravestone.

Many casualties, especially during the 1863-1864 campaigns, are probably buried in mass or unmarked graves, and their final resting place will never be known. There are also, in Vermont, many cenotaphs, or empty graves; some of these are not marked as such, but are a fitting memorial to the fallen solider nevertheless.

The Vermont drummer at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Julian Scott (born in Johnson, VT), won the Medal of Honor. He painted The Battle of Cedar Creek, which hangs in the Cedar Creek Room of the Vermont State House in Montpelier. I photographed this painting when I visited in October of 2007.

detail

The Cedar Creek Room of the Vermont State House

References:

• Benedict, George Grenville. Vermont in the Civil War. Burlington VT: Free Press Association, 1888
• Cedar Creek Battlefield
• Cedar Creek Order of Battle (pdf document)
• Civil War Medal of Honor Recipient Drummer Julian Scott
• Darlene Young. A History of Barton Vermont. Academy Books.
• Julian Scott. (2008, April 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:56, May 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julian_Scott&oldid=206034085
• Vermont State House
• Vermont Civil War; Roster; Burial; Basics

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Technorati Tags: Memorial Day, Battle of Cedar Creek, Civil War, Charles Devereux
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Blog Your Blessings: Healing Thoughts

video from sandycarlson.net


visit Sandy's YouTube channel for more 

healing words, wisdom and videos

that are "based on prayers and scripture from various faith traditions."

I find that I am using Blog Your Blessings to highlight those things that comfort and heal me. The past six weeks have been a healing time of prayer and reflection. Music, reading, talking, and Sandy's words and videos have helped me realize I am not alone. 

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Blog Your Blessings: The Winter of Chickadees

It has been a long time since I participated in Blog Your Blessings. It has been difficult for me to find a blessing during this long winter. But we all know that nearly all of us can find one blessing to be thankful for. I finally realized that the chickadees blessed me all winter.

These little birds are very bright, chirpy and friendly. When we went to refill the feeders, they would flock about us in the tree. When I opened the window to toss out bread or peanuts, they would fly to the tree to see what was being offered.

One window in my kitchen faces the back dooryard and Barton Mountain. There is open yard, then a small open field, then a buffer zone of tall, thick shrubs before the tree line at the woods. The chickadees seemed to live in those thickets of shrubs during the winter. They would fly one by one to the feeder. I observed them as they hopped in the snow for seeds, or waited in the bare branches for their turn to fly to the feeder. A dozen or more could be in the feeder tree, but they would only arrive one by one. Was this for fear of predators? Were they willing to sacrifice themselves to a hawk, owl or shrike should one strike from the sky and gobble them up? The others, the multitudes waiting to fly to the feeder, would be safe if one were lost. But if a predator appeared at the feeder, say a cat or a shrike, they would all fly off together in a cloud of black, white and yellow thrumming wings.

At the tree, they would shove their black-capped heads into the sunflower seed feeder and emerge with one good seed. Then they would fly to a nearby branch, hold the seed in their feet while they broke the hull with their beak, and gorge on that luscious kernel inside. When they finished with that seed, they would return to the feeder for another. They would never eat thistle and they would peck at the suet feeders. But they loved sunflower seeds more than anything else.

When I watched their lives out of my window and captured them forever in my camera, I didn't feel as lonely as I usually did during this past long winter. I was a part of something important. The chickadees don't rely on feeders to survive the winter, yet I felt as if I were important to them. The photo above is actually my last chickadee photograph of this winter feeder season. Ironically, it shows the last chickadee as it flew back to the woods for the summer. I can hear them now clearly from the house and my heart sings with happiness when I do. But I won't easily see them as they meld into the leafy canopy until next winter. The lives of the chickadees will be delightful during the warm months. I wish the same for myself during the remainder of this spiritually difficult year.

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Technorati Tags: black-capped chickadees, Parus atricapillus

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Blog Your Blessings: Book Review: Silent Spaces by Sandy Carlson

I have finished reading Silent Spaces by Sandy Carlson. Sandy's photography of graffiti first caught my eye a long time ago. I have since learned that she also writes about faith and is a poet. This book is a collection of letters, poems and family memories of her uncle, Laurence, who died in World War II in the Pacific.

I have been told countless times that memories comfort the grieving and they help to keep a person alive. Memories of your family that are given to you by members of your family add a dimension and context, even veracity, to the memories of an individual who has died. In my birth family, the dead are gone and are not spoken of again. They are actually hidden and secreted away in many ways. Sandy's book was a lesson for me in how other families deal with loss and memories: they share them in many ways.

Set in New England, I understood the sites, activities and images in this book. The sea shells and stone walls, even the deer, pumpkins and "dun trees," that may be familiar to everyone, I know in the context of the seasons that we have (seasons are used by Sandy as a metaphor throughout the book). Winter light, swamps, and old photo albums found in attics are so familiar to me that I can smell and feel the air as I read about them.

Sandy's book was an emotional and spiritual blessing for me. Every reader will find valuable insights when they read it. Click on the image above to buy the book.

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