Joy and Chaos

Betsy at home with me

Monday was such a wonderful day. I finally was able to bring home Betsy, our new family member. She is three years old, has the most expressive and beautiful green eyes, and is a mother. She left her two several-months-old kittens behind. She was surrendered because of substance abuse problems in her old home. I am grateful that the owner surrendered her so that she could live a safe life forever. Betsy is now spayed. And my sidebar is now complete with one of the first photos of her. And of me. My new small family.

Betsy is very warm and loving. She lets me hold her, comes when I call her, purrs quietly, speaks softly, and follows me around. But if Nelly is about, she steps aside. Nelly's nose is definitely out of joint. She is not being aggressive; just passive-aggressive. Nelly still uses her biscuit blanket at night, which is good because it relaxes her body. Of course, I am giving Nell all the support that I can.

Betsy after exploring the cellar.

We had a warm and delightful Monday night. I was looking forward to Tuesday when I would begin a new mathematics curriculum with young students that need extra support. The weather for Tuesday was supposed to be as wonderful as it was on Monday. It was going to be perfectly warm after a hard frost.

But five miles east of home, I hit a deer. We certainly are used to watching for deer. The roads are mowed and trimmed to help drivers see them coming. We have even had two deer leap over the front hood as we drove. This was a small deer, no taller than the hood of the car. It came out of nowhere, as if it dropped from the sky. It was simply a terrible thing to experience. It was pulled under the car and the car went over it. All I can say is that I am glad it was killed instantly.

8 AM on Rte. 16

I pulled over to call…who? I decided to call the state troopers and completely forgot Fish & Wildlife. I couldn't get a signal, but a woman stopped and she could. I was told to wait for a trooper who would retrieve my car parts that had been taken off of the car in the collision. The owner of a house nearby and the woman then left for their jobs. 

While waiting, I listened to my audiobook, watched a flock of robins, and then heard the crows gathering for the poor deer's corpse. That was a bit too much for me, so I closed the window so that I couldn't hear them. Eventually, about five crows congregated in the tall trees. The flock of robins, once I turned my car off, were very happily looking for food in the grass.

There are crows up there.

A robin foraging for food.

But at 10 AM, two hours after the collision, I went home. I called the state trooper barracks in Derby but nobody responded to my voice mail. I called my mechanic, who did not return my call until it was dark out. I spent the day with Lucy, my cats (how nice it is to be able to say cats plural), reading, and wondering why I have not cried for the deer. 

The fender was "undone"

No front plate

The deer was gone this morning. I have learned from the staff at school that the state troopers have a list of families that will retrieve the deer for food. I punched the fender of my car back into place, but the front license plate and hardware are gone. Since I am disabled, it is unsafe for me to search for them in the ditch. It will cost $12 for DMV to replace the plates. I have no idea what Subaru will charge to replace and install the hardware to attach it. 

I grieve for the short life of the young deer. I am grateful that I am alright so that I can care for the dog and cats. I am grateful that my car doesn't need many repairs. I am so thankful that my youngest mathematics students are happy with the change in curriculum and that relationship-building can continue full tilt. They won't feel deficient now. And all the kids at school knew about the deer and the new cat and wanted to hear about both all day today. I am thankful for the quality of my life. 

Thankful Thursdays at
Brian's Home

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A New Furnace

The new furnace waiting to get into the house.

I own a big 121-year-old iconic Vermont farmhouse that has been added to decade after decade. It is drafty and cold, with granite boulders as a foundation that were quarried from Barton Mountain behind the house. The original part of the house was built with no windows at all on the north side to keep out the cold! My husband was renovating the house, but he only was half done when he died.

I've had years of severe problems with the old furnace. It required $1,000-$2,000 of repairs each of the past two winters. With the cost of heating fuel the highest I can ever remember, this is causing severe hardship. This summer I was finally able to get a new furnace. The problem was that all the home heating companies here are swamped with furnace repairs and replacements, so I had to wait in line. Monday, September 26, was the day it was finally installed!

The old furnace was a combination wood and oil burner. Most people here have these, but I didn't want another one. John burned wood for 10 years here with wood harvested from our land. It was a tremendous amount of work. 

Here are photos of the old furnace that the technicians somehow managed to drag out of the cellar. It had holes rusted through it. The old cast iron fire box was in bad shape. My husband had repaired a lot of it during his life. 

It took two days for them to install the furnace, balance the heat ducts, replace some duct work, and make a new cold air intake in the kitchen. The upstairs is heated by gravity: in the old days, they cut holes in the downstairs ceiling and let the heat rise. And the last addition to the house had no heat at all until John ran a duct over to it. 

I love this furnace. It is so quiet that when I came home from school today I thought it had stopped running. There are no more roaring, cracking, or screaming sounds from the cellar. The heat is even throughout the house now. My new thermostat is digital and tells me the room temperature in real time. I'm running it cooler now, set to 65°F (18°C) all the time. I'll see if that is sufficient when it is -30°F (-34°C) this winter. Well, I'd rather not see that, but it will happen. 

I finally found my lost step stool
that belongs in the kitchen!

For Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for a stress-free winter with no worries to what I will find when I come home from school. Good riddance, old furnace!

Thankful Thursday at
Brian's Home

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Thankful Thursday: The Awful Eagle Day!

I got up late this morning and was half an hour late to school. On the way out, I found that I had run out of heating fuel! In the car, I found that the car was nearly out of gas! The spoon for my breakfast fell on the car floor. Ewww! They had not made my copies for my first class as I had texted, so I did them and messed them up so that someone else had to re-do them for me. 

But all my classes went very well today and that was a blessing. I could spend all my time fretting about the cost of heating oil. I got the car filled with gas ($65) and I noticed that the sheep were out in a field nearby, so they would be my simple photo of the day. I ordered oil, paid for it (I can only afford 100 gallons at a time anymore; it is $4.42 a gallon now, which is down by over $2 from the summer). 

But I also had to visit other blogs! I haven't done so for days and I am thankful that nobody has complained.  And then…I turned the corner to go around the north beach of Willoughby Lake, and there they were. Four bald eagles. FOUR. Someday I will tell you about my bald eagle sighting debacles, but they are long stories, so they can wait.

Until just a few years ago, maybe just ten years ago, bald eagles were extirpated from Vermont. Every neighboring state and province had them except us. Since they have returned, all of my friends and children have seen them. I have only seen them when I staked out a site that has been told to me by others. I am now infamous for not-finding-an-eagle. But no more!

There were a couple of other people, and a cyclist, there at the lake, but they didn't seem to care. My bug camera, which would have been perfect for eagle shots, was at home warm and dry. Well, at least it was dry. Not warm. So all I had, again, was the cell phone. 

I uploaded my report to iNaturalist, where one should be staid, sedate, and professional. Yet, this is what I posted in the notes on my observation:

Today was a wonderful day despite every other awful thing that went wrong. You can't buy anything as good as that awesome feeling when you watch eagles soar. Thank you all for your patience with my blog visits this week, for your visits, and your marvelous comments. I'm sure I will miss days again and again during school, but I sorely miss all of you and the stories of your lives. I will catch up and visit your posts that I have missed! Oh! And thank you for reading this entirely too long post!  💓

More thanks at
Brian's Home

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Thankful Thursday: New Office, Old Friends

Amelia came to school Sunday and helped put my new office together. I have been moved, thank goodness, so now I'm not so isolated and am in the middle of the action. I no longer have a classroom; just an office. But this office is mine, unlike last year. No sharing. No copier machine. Nobody else's stuff. Only my stuff. Plus, I found my complete set of Sir Cumference books that I have not seen for four years! I finished unpacking and arranging things on Wednesday. 😎

Jody, Amelia, Anna and I spent one virtual night last week trolling Twitter and sharing hedgehog pics. I decided I had to have a hedgehog village. So Jody surprised me with a starter home and two companions for the hedgehog.  💖  

My hedgehog starter home.

My hedgehog companions.

Unfortunately, the dinosaurs from last year's fossil class escaped. . .

Oh, nooo!

Not to worry; all are happy and well. I'm going to ask some kids to make a backdrop and forest floor for the cubby where these are being showcased.

These are the things I am so thankful for this week. 

I am blessed.

Click for more Thankfulness

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Thankful Thursday: Goofy Bumble Bees

This is the time of year when the jewelweed blooms and the bumbles crawl into a blossom and hang there while they gather nectar and pollen. 

I always chuckle when I see them through my lens.

All you see are two fuzzy, pollen-studded legs hanging out.

I'm thankful to be able to see and enjoy this.

Any day now, the hummingbirds will come through on their migration and stop for the jewelweed and phlox, also.

Click for more Thankful Thursday

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Thankful Thursday: Making Biscuits

I am thankful to Nelly for allowing me to show off her biscuit making skills. 😍

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more Thankful Thursday.

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Thankful Thursday: Bug Hunts

As thankful as I am for Lucy and Nell, I am also thankful for the ability to do daily bug hunts each season. They have helped me heal from so many losses the past three years. Lucy goes with me every day and happily explores the smells in our woods and fields. In good bug weather, I am processing photos, collecting identifications, posting to iNaturalist, checking in with my friend JF and with my children that also report to iNat about what they have found. Sometimes we are fortunate to find larvae, known and unknown, that we can raise. All these things pull my head out of my grief and into the daily world. Here is a Common Whitetail Dragonfly that landed, and remained, in front of us on August 1. Lucy was easily trained to never disturb an insect being photographed.

Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia) male

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