Christmas Eve in Barton

St. Paul's Church on Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas!

(I thought it has been long enough since my last post in March!)

Happy Thanksgiving (Buddy)!

Buddy eats his Catster stickers

Catster, one of the favorite cat bloggers’ sites, recently offered free Catster stickers. They want you to e-mail photos of how you creatively used these stickers and will post the most creative uses on their site. My stickers came in the mail this week, so I excitedly looked over my house and stuff for a spot for my stickers so that I could photograph them for Catster. I didn’t want them on my camera, camera bag, computer, Kindle or walls. Not on my school bag, either. Finally I spied Buddy sleeping and stuck them on him. Buddy woke up very quickly and very grumpy until he spied the stickers. Then he immediately started eating them.

On this Thanksgiving Day, Buddy is thankful for anything that is edible. Even if it’s not. I am grateful for my new, rich life with John (and the cats). We have so much. Life is wonderful! Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

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Fourth of July Fireworks in Barton

The fireworks were shot from a different location on Crystal Lake, Barton, Vermont this year and their altitude was low. These photos were shot from my bedroom window, which used to be the perfect spot to shoot them. But this year, you can see the trees, and even power lines, in many shots. It was a disappointment for me. I used a tripod and a remote shutter, f11, ISO 200, manual focus, bulb. I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

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Mother’s Day

A bouquet from Andrew

Mother's Day was three weeks ago and I continue to have wonderful memories of the day. Andrew sent the bouquet of flowers above. Amelia brought over the hanging basket of lobelia, shown below. I made my perfect pancakes for everybody. Anna called, and Danielle PMed me on Facebook. There was church and a good chicken dinner, followed by movies for just me and John here at home that night. It was a great day. So while all you other mothers posted timely thanks to your families on Mother's Day, I am only now giving mine. I have a wonderful family, a loving, thoughtful, hard-working husband, a marvelous home, cats who can be loving when they care to be, and friends and co-workers who are also loving. And tolerant. My life is full of activities and adventures. Not many women are as blessed as me.

My basket of lobelia bathing in the sink.

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More E-cards for You on Valentine’s Day

I want to share more of my e-cards that are available at Yankee Magazine (use this link for e-cards by other contributors and click on my photos below for my cards). Click on the e-card that you wish to send and you will be redirected to the Yankee Magazine e-card page for that image. These cards are always available on my sidebar on the right. Thank you for using my e-cards!

♥ Happy Valentine’s Day! ♥

Angry Hairy Woodpecker

Mount Pisgah Ice Cliffs, Lake Willoughby

Redpoll in a Snowstorm

Red Squirrel

Eastern White Pine Seed Cone

Forest Still Life

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A Christmas Eve View

The view of Barton Mountain
from our bedroom window on Christmas Eve morning.

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Demolition (or How We Spent Our Christmas)

Gold flock wallpaper — the third layer under the ceiling.

With a house leaking wind and snow (yes, we even got snow inside!), it was vital that, holidays or not, John continued the renovations of the house. The week before Christmas he began the kitchen. There were several layers of ceiling to be removed, and this was the absolute worst thing to live through.

Partially demolished kitchen showing the 2nd yellow ceiling layer
and the original replacement window.

Under the suspended ceiling that we have lived with for years, there was a yellow sheetrock-type ceiling. Under that was gold flocked wallpaper. And under the wall paper was sheetrock and insulation. Under the insulation was the original plaster ceiling from 110 years ago. It was disgusting. It held a century of filth and dust. There were squirrel and mouse skeletons and scat. When the plaster came down, it created an awful rolling cloud throughout the house. I failed to wear a mask, despite John's warnings, and the next day (the Wednesday before Christmas) I was barely able to breathe and was at the clinic getting asthma treatments.

180° from the previous photo showing the kitchen with partially demolished ceiling.

John cleaned and vacuumed and cleaned and shoveled debris as I used a nebulizer and masks at home. I have slowly gotten better, but the doctor thinks that until we can open the house in the spring, I will be using extra asthma meds for months. At least now, in the middle of January, I am able to help John a teeny tiny bit, go to work and continue my housework and cooking.

This used to be the sun porch. Now it is part of the kitchen area.
Windows and doors are being moved about. Outside the door on the right
will be a porch for sitting in the summer.

The photographs in this post go up to right after Christmas. The entire area is now studded and sheet rocked. Windows have been moved, new windows have been installed and now the house is clean and tidy. I have half of a kitchen for cooking.

Looking from the old kitchen into the new living room with the saw.

This is what happens when you demolish a 110 year old plaster ceiling.

The new living room, dining room, kitchen and another dining area will be open. But every wall had to be rebuilt. The foundation had to be repaired. The sill that the house sits on had to be fortified. And the house had to be jacked and leveled. The construction spilled upstairs to the bedroom above the kitchen and into the basement and original living room.

Another view of the demolition of the ceiling.

And another view.

We had no choice but to continue with the ceiling demolition while the house was closed. But if we have to do more ceilings in the future, I will need to leave or we will do it in the summer.

Besides a century of filth, the plaster was hiding mouse and squirrel scat.

I am so grateful to my husband for cleaning up the filth that was in the house. I always wondered why I was sick more often here in Vermont but never ever sick in New Hampshire. Now we know why.

The original wiring under the 2nd floor joists with the original porcelain hardware to guide the wires.

We found wonderful artifacts inside the walls, including newspapers and porcelain devices for wiring the walls early in the last century. We found how the original house was originally laid out in four rooms downstairs with different window configurations.

>If only the succeeding "electricians" had been as neat as the original electricians.

More photos in the future will show you how the kitchen has evolved!

If you ever have a choice of living in a house while this is going on or of temporarily moving somewhere else . . . MOVE!

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Got On Your Snowsuit? Your Boots? Then Let’s Go Trick or Treating! It’s Halloween!

Yes, it snowed last night. It snowed off and on all day. It picked up this afternoon. But the roads are still warm and so it's a normal Halloween in the Northeast Kingdom. Kids have put on their snowsuits, boots and mittens under their costumes and they are being driven into villages everywhere to get their loot. They will waddle up and down village roads and come home warmed by sugar.

Our old house (under major renovations) in the early afternoon today.

On the left is Ironman as Transformer. On the right is Catgirl as, well, Catgirl.

And now, above and below, we are all bundled up with sweatshirts, snowsuits, hats, mittens, boots, and the costumes!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

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Christmas 2009

From the first Sunday of Advent, when I baked the communion bread until our tree (cut out back) came down on Three Kings Day, we had a very quiet and meaningful Christmas.

The advent wreath was made by a church member from a traditional design with boughs and herbs from the New Hampshire forest. Every item had a meaning. Prayer shawls were laid under the flowers on the communion table. I heard the organ for the first time. Christmas Eve service was especially memorable as John and I attended together.

We had ham on Christmas and shrimp on New Years. The cats enjoyed the tree and only took a few ornaments and part of a string of lights off of the tree. They especially enjoyed sleeping under it. John said it reminded them of being in the woods in the summer.

We had a lot of snow during Advent. The cats were dismayed at this, but would venture out on the deck occasionally for the fresh, cold air.

I took few photos. But there are enough here for me to always remember our first Christmas. I hope yours was peaceful and joyful.



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A Dog Visit on the Fourth

When Amy & Matt came on the Fourth of July, they brought Sophie (above) and Scout. The dogs loved the swimming in the pond and hunting in the woods for squirrels, chipmunks and mice. Sophie doesn't seem too happy here, but that is just the capture of the camera. She was running and swimming for hours.

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Happy Fourth of July!

see more Funny Graphs

Amy, Matt, Sophie & Scout came for a cookout today, which we managed to have. It rained harder than it has the past month. Thunderstorm after thunderstorm rolled through and the rain was blinding. But inbetween, we managed to cook and we had a great time. The dogs swam, went mouse and squirrel hunting and we walked them down the road. No fireworks tonite (see the above graph)!

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Heads or Tails: Love Story

Mama never forgets her birds,
Though in another tree —
She looks down just as often
And just as tenderly
As when her little mortal nest
With cunning care she wove —
If either of her "sparrows fall,"
She "notices," above.

Emily Dickinson
c. 1860

To see more participants click Heads or Tails or Heads or Tails

Thank you so much for visiting.

Technorati Tags: Emily Dickinson, motherly love
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Photo Booth Fun

Wingnut discovered that you can make movies with Photo Booth and made three. I stitched them together in Quicktime, added titles and music in iMovie and published it to YouTube. I just can't figure out how to fade the sound on the last frame in iMovie. The audio fade doesn't work. I may have to re-install iMovie. Yuck.

Below are 60-some still Photo Booth photos that Wingnut took on the Fourth of July. I added a song that he plays in the car several times a day!

And here are photos of me and of me and Sue,
who was here on the Fourth.

I inadvertently took a photo while setting up the software for Sue to use. Then we inadvertently took a photo of both of us while I was explaining it. We're glad we did now. We don't have any other photos of us together.


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Sourdough Philosophy Circus

The Bread & Puppet Theater always has the last spot in Barton's Fourth of July Parade. They always have something significant to say with their puppets. That is why they get their own post in the blog.















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