meeyauw: Nate

John has spent a month away from home working in Connecticut and New Hampshire. Way back in June, just after Arthur's visit, he left for the first out of state job at 3 PM. I then began some chores and Nate went out to mow. I happened to glance out the kitchen window and noticed smoke coming from the hill up the mountain side. I was curious about the smoke but thought there was no problem. It was white smoke — wood smoke. I thought perhaps John had gotten a fire permit and either had not told me or had told me and I had forgotten. Nate, I learned later, thought the same thing as he mowed and observed the smoke. John is so safe with fire that we did not worry. But ten minutes later as I looked out again, I saw flames licking at a sapling on the hillside. And suddenly I saw Nate running as hard as he could up the hill to the fire. Then I knew we had a problem. The smoke was now black and that is a very bad sign. I ran out and by the time I reached the fire, Nate had pulled it apart with his hands and was beating the flames with his shirt. I ran back to the house and filled a five gallon bucket with water from the hose (which wouldn't reach) and dragged it up to Nate who used it to safely and completely douse the flames. After thanking Nate for saving the mountain from a forest fire, we reconstructed what happened.

The burned sawhorses.

We had a spare insulated exterior door with a large window in it lying on sawhorses on plywood back there on the hill. There was black sheathing under the door. The intense sunlight (yes, it gets intense here at times!) shining through the glass in the door created enough heat to ignite the black sheathing, which ignited the plywood. The sapling was never damaged by the flames that I saw from the window. But some of John's lumber (and all the sheathing and the entire door) were destroyed. We were very fortunate at the outcome and learned that you can never, ever let your guard down about fire. We had been careless when we piled up stuff out back. I am so thankful that we were home when it happened. I am doubly grateful that Nate was here to put the fire out quickly and effectively. He knew exactly what to do.

_/\_/\_

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Wordless Wednesday: Nate & His Children

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Thursday, July 01, 2010

Why The Barn Was Falling Down

John demonstrates how saturated the ground was under the barn. That was why it was collapsing and has to be demolished and re-built. Our friend, Arthur, is the man sitting on the barn. Ironman mimics John. You can also see Nate and a chicken. This was the first movie I made with the Olympus Tough 8000 camera and was playing with the functions on it but since I don't see well, I couldn't tell that it wasn't focused that well.

_/\_/\_

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Wedding Photos by Matt

l to r: Andrew, John, me, Anna, Amelia

Me & John

l to r: Dan, Anna, Aaron

Amelia & Nate

Matt & squinty-eyed me

Amelia & Matt

Dan (left) & Andrew

Anna & Andrew

Little Ironman

John, me, Wingnut

_/\_/\_

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Wood's In!


Our truck load of logs arrives.

John, a large man, stands next to the log truck.

The logger was expert at using the cherry picker.

Halfway done.

Amy and Nate used four cords of wood this past winter (and no oil!). But it snowed the first two weeks of May and we ran out of wood and had to get more. We decided to split our own logs this year. We have a wood furnace and a wood stove and they take two different lengths of wood. Wood is also cheaper if bought by the log. I was told that one truck load of logs is approximately 6 cords of wood. But the logger and John agreed that we probably have up to 8 cords here. With a full tank of oil and 6-8 cords of wood, we should be set for two winters!

The plan, concocted by John and Nate, is that the men (them) will use the chainsaws to cut the wood to length. Then Amy and I will split it. I'll be sure to let you know how well that plan works out for them.
_/\_/\_

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Cooling Off in Crystal Lake


Ironman found a maple leaf.

On May 24 (five days before the wedding), we took the kids to Pageant Park to cool off. We were having a heat wave. The park wasn't officially open yet, but no one stopped us from cooling off.


Ironman wanted a photograph of the leaf in the water. So I did.

Nate swings Catgirl through the air.

Amelia joins in.

Catgirl swings through the water.

_/\_/\_

Friday, June 04, 2010

Another Fisher Cat Story

On the Saturday night of the women's retreat, Amy and Nate went out for the evening. The chickens always put themselves to bed, but the days are longer, and they hadn't retired to the coop before the kids left for the evening. Now this has happened before, and the kids have always gotten back fairly early. But this night was different.

At 10 PM, I went out to the garage to count cats to make sure they were all in for the night. The garage was closed but I heard loud chicken clucking. The chicken wasn't in the barn — which is very bad. I ran to the stairs and called out to John, who had gone to bed earlier. Then I grabbed a flashlight, a very poor flashlight, and ran outside. I knew that it would be a couple of minutes before John would be able to get the rifle and get outside to get the raccoons and I wanted to stop any more massacres.

The panicky, clucking chicken was in the driveway in front of the garage door, under the outside light which was on. She was pacing back and forth as if waiting for the garage doors to open so she could get into the house. I ran up to the barn. My plan was to shine the flashlight into the barn and holler, which would hopefully slow down or stop the raccoons.

I shined the inadequate light into the open barn from where I stood outside and an unholy scream broke out. I began to scream. At the same moment, John came out the garage door with the rifle. I stumbled towards the house as John came towards me. He hollered at me for screaming and scaring the animal in the barn. I got back to the garage and waited with the chicken.

She was still clucking wildly and pacing in front of the garage doors. Occasionally she would stop her clucking, cock her head and listen to a scream that we heard on the mountainside. As soon as the scream would end, she would throw herself into the air and try to get into the garage through the sealed garage door windows. She left the imprint of her wings and feathers on the dusty glass of the windows.

John returned and said it was not a raccoon that had been in the barn — it was a fisher cat. He said I had been very foolish to go to the barn unarmed when I knew that was trouble in there. There could have been a bear or bobcat in that barn. Or a raccoon. But this time it was a fisher and I had put myself in danger with what I had thoughtlessly done. John was furious with me. I realized that he was right and apologized.

The screaming on the mountain from the angry fisher cat continued for awhile and faded away. But the chicken was not calming down or going to her roost. We opened the garage door and the noise scared the chicken into the barn, where we managed to herd her into the coop. All this time, the cats, who could have gone outside through the garage, and the dogs, who always bark at excitement outside and could have jumped through the screens on the window, were completely quiet and stayed in. They recognized the cry of a fisher cat and were not going to antagonize it further.

It was midnight before the chickens were in bed for the night and John and I could return inside. The kids got home around 1 AM, when I told them the whole story. Thankfully, the repairs to the chicken coop that Nate had made had held and everyone was safe.

Since that time two weeks ago, John has seen the fisher cat prowling the land at night. The raccoons tried to get into the coop one more time. I heard wild clucking again one night. By the time everyone got out to the coop, there were no threats to the chickens in the barn. But there was a lot of blood on the chicken wire over the window. The raccoons had tried to chew through the wire and gotten badly cut.

We are in the process of dismantling the falling down barn and building a big, secure coop.

_/\_/\_

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Catgirl Stars As Brachiosaurus!

In May, the Kindergarten and first grades presented Dinomotion! for their spring production at school. Nate and Amy, John and I went to see it. I had my new long lens, which was a huge benefit to getting these shots. Catgirl is in Kindergarten and was at times nervous, shy, tired and happy. When Catgirl saw me and John, she waved to us and we saw her relax a bit. She had her first solo part as the Brachiosaurus and her father had helped her learn her part perfectly. She was a beautiful star that night! You have to forgive me posting so many photographs of her . . . she is just so cute that I couldn’t select just a couple shots.

After the show, Amy & Nate treated us all to ice cream sundaes (except John, who doesn’t particularly care for it) at Tim & Doug’s in Newport. We walked on the boardwalk at Memphremagog, where Ironman told us to watch out for whales and dolphins.

Tim & Doug's Ice Cream Stand is the best place for ice cream!

Lake Memphremagog
Bear Mountain (Vermont) on the left.
Owl's Head (Quebec) on the right.

John and I stopped for sunset photos in Coventry

on the way home from this great evening.

_/\_/\_

Sunday, May 30, 2010

How I Went to King Arthur and Found My Future

John and me at the September wedding of my nephew

In January of 2009, the King Arthur blog had posted a recipe for pan de mie. It needs a special pan de mie pan, which I didn't have. Having nothing else to do and it being great weather, I went down to Norwich to the King Arthur store to get a new bread pan. I couldn't see the pan on the shelves as I roamed around the store. I got a clerk who told me that the pans were back ordered. And a man, who had been standing near by, said I could use his. I chuckled; we talked. And we roamed the store together. He had come to the store from New Hampshire to get a square spring form pan to make cheesecake for one. The store didn't have those either. But we talked about our kids, about cooking (which I really didn't do too much of), and we exchanged little bits of knowledge we had. I ended up buying a lot of brioche pans and mixes. He got more yeast.

We continued talking in the parking lot for so long that we went into Lebanon, NH for lunch. We never ran out of things to talk about, but I had to start my two hour ride home, so we reluctantly parted. We haven't been apart too often since then.

Yesterday, in Pageant Park, we were married. After being a widow for 16 years, I finally found a man who is fascinating, intelligent, outspoken, talented, tolerant, hard-working, giving to a fault, protective and loving. My children love him and the cats adore him. The grandchildren think he's the greatest thing around. We have expansive plans for our lives and are looking forward to the future. You've seen some of our adventures here in the blogs — many more await all of us!

I managed to take a few photos yesterday. Aaron took the wedding photos and they will be posted as soon as he transmits them to us.

Above: John and Catgirl walk on the beach
of Crystal Lake before the ceremony.