The Server Problem

White-tailed spike horn buck and a doe

You have to forgive me for blog posts that jump back and forth in time. We had a huge problem with my new four terabyte server when we moved it from the sun porch to the living room because of the kitchen renovations. John carefully took each component apart. My job was to move each component to the new location with all cables attached. Did I do that? Nope. I detached a couple of cables and the server never worked after that. I was e-mailing Arthur, who designed and built the server for us He couldn’t figure out what the problem was. He couldn’t come here from New Hampshire to fix it because of the weather. Arthur and John did a lot of trouble shooting on the phone. Arthur tried to recreate the problem at home and couldn’t. John tried to mount the drives directly onto my computer without the server and that didn’t work.

Finally about a month ago, we called PC+Med in Newport. A young technician came the next morning. The first question he asked me was if the AC adaptor on the external drive dock was the correct adaptor for the dock. Well, I had no idea! So we all dug through my boxes of cables and equipment and found the proper adaptor. I had attached the wrong AC adaptor! The dock wasn't getting enough power, so the drives couldn't load, and therefore nothing worked. I was very embarrassed and told John and the technician that we would none of us ever tell anybody what I had done. They agreed. But my guilt forced me to do the right thing. Arthur had spent a lot of time and thought trying to solve my server problem and he deserved to know that it was my fault that it wouldn’t work. So I confessed. I only asked Arthur not to laugh at me for what I had done. It really hurt my pride to confess to him. After all, Arthur and I have played with computers together for twenty years and he knows that I know what I’m doing!

Arthur said he couldn’t possibly laugh at me because he has done the same thing himself in the past! This is why I love him. He’s the best!

Anyhow, because the server was down, I couldn't access thousands of photos and had only the most recent photos available for blogging. But now I can go back in time and continue our adventures.

In September, John and I drove to Burlington because I needed new glasses. My glasses were so bad that the lenses kept falling out here and there and anywhere. It got so bad that I only had one eye that worked. So we went to the optometrist and I kicked and screamed the whole way. But nothing awful happened. We actually had a nice day in Burlington. We had lunch out, went window shopping and had a lot of time together.

I finally got bifocals. John talked me into it (and I'm glad he did!). Photography and grocery shopping are much easier now. I can focus the camera and read the labels in the store. I don't come home with the wrong groceries anymore!

As we drove home from Burlington, John spotted these two young deer on Lowell Mountain. We turned around and drove back to take the photos. They were far off at the tree line but my lens caught them. Not caught well, but caught.This was the first spike horn I have ever seen. I guess it is now legal to hunt spike horns and it has always been legal for youth weekend.

By the way, click here for the 2011 hunting calendar for Vermont. It’s a pdf file for printing. And click here for Vermont hunting regulations.

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Speeding for Electricity and Unpotting Rings

The old electrical panel before the fire.

If you have been following the restoration of this old house, you know there have been problems. Old animal infestations, hoards of mice, missing joists and studs in the floors and walls, extra floors and ceilings, dangerous electrical wiring, illness, a hundred year old boiler buried under the driveway . . . the list seems endless.

Uncovered dangerous, old wiring in a wall.

We had another serious problem during a violent thunderstorm this past autumn. John has been repairing and replacing the electrical wiring as he restores and rebuilds each wall. The electrical panel box containing the circuit breakers was in pretty bad shape but had been slowly improving. John was still worried about it, though. On this fall night of the story a huge surge of electricity from a nearby lightning strike not only burned half of the panel out but also started a fire. John was standing right next to the panel box because he was worried about it during the storm, so he was able to quickly stop the fire. Half of the house was then without electricity, which is a very dangerous thing. I can't remember the details or the technical reasons why, but John had some emergency electrical work to do that night to prevent another fire and he slept poorly because of worry.

After a few phone calls in the morning, we located a new electrical panel in Newport and drove off to buy it. I drove us home. Fast. I remember that we were talking and I was so focused on our conversation that I never paid attention to how quickly I was moving. A Vermont state trooper got me. This was not the first time I have been stopped for speeding. It was only the first time that I got a speeding ticket — while my husband sat in the front seat laughing and enjoying the entire process!  Read more here about my driving problems.

We got home, John replaced the electrical panel. We had to have the village electric people turn off the power at the pole on the road so that John could replace the panel box. It took awhile for them to come turn off the power because lines were down all over town. The whole day, John continued laughing about the ticket and my new criminal record. The ticket? Well, it was for going 64 in a 50 (103 kph in an 80 kph zone). The fine was $130.

My geraniums after thriving outside in the summer.

The next day was Saturday, and it was a beautiful, cool day. It was a perfect day to repot the houseplants that had been outside during the summer. It was time to move them inside. I had so much enthusiasm for this that I repotted just about every houseplant I have — geraniums, African violets, aloe, coleus, Christmas cactus, the whole shebang.

The problem was my wedding band. It had never been properly fitted and kept falling off of my hand, especially when my hands were cold. And my hands were cold more and more often as autumn progressed. Sure enough, when I was finished repotting the plants, my new wedding band was missing from my finger. I was devastated. I was actually crying softly. John helped me look everywhere in the kitchen and outside in the gardens for the ring, but we didn't find it. We gave up and I went to my computer and played games — all the while feeling more and more miserable. I could replace the wedding band but I could never replace the sentiment and meaning it had for me.

After two hours of sulking and misery, I returned to the kitchen and began digging through the repotted plants. Within minutes, I found my ring! I was so happy that I began to cry all over again.

It had been quite an eventful two days, but all ended well. I'm driving slower, I made a trip to the city and had my wedding ring properly sized, and the house is now safely rewired. But John is still befuddled about my angst over my wedding ring.

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The New Kitchen Windows (or How We Spent New Year’s Day)

The front kitchen window as it was when I bought the house.
Note how the doorway to the living room and stairs is going to be walled off on the left.

The debris from the demolition of the ancient plaster kitchen ceiling had been cleared. The dust was settling. I was recovering and was able to breath easier again, but still was not well. By New Year's Day, John had progressed to the point of being able to install the new kitchen windows on the front of the house. The kitchen area is being moved from the back of the west side of the house to the front. I love the beaver bog across the road and need to be able to see it all the time, so John designed the kitchen so that will be possible. You see in the photo above that the old (but not original) drywall was still in place on New Year's morning. John had to remove this wall to properly install the window and rebuild the wall. We were fortunate that the day was one of the warmest winter days I have experienced in Vermont.

A ladybug infestation was found inside the old, warm wall.

Besides the "normal" mouse and squirrel damage, bones and feces, John uncovered beetle infestations and this ladybug infestation in the old wall. These Asian ladybugs infest thousands of homes in the north country. I have written about them here if you would like to learn more. All of the pests and filth were cleaned before the work proceeded.

Finally, the entire wall was ready for the new window.

The old window had to be removed. John found that there originally had been two windows on this wall, two feet apart. They were taller and narrower windows than the one you see here. See the door on the right in the photograph above? This window was going to replace that door. John found that the Anderson window here was installed wrong and was beginning to rot because of the poor installation. But John's renovations found the damage in time to make repairs.

The old window is removed and we have fresh, warm air pouring into the house.

It is now dark and the first new window is in place.
I was able, in small ways, to help install it.

The 2nd window is now in place.
You can see the old window standing on the floor on the right.

Sunlight now pours into the kitchen every day. The sheet rock is on the walls now (you will see those photos soon), the walls are clean and draft-free, and the kitchen is going to be magnificent!

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Bizarre Home Improvements

The original bedroom floor is revealed.
The skylight was removed last winter.

In order to properly restore the house, John had to level the entire house with jacks. This would also insure that the kitchen floor was level. He was able to jack the house up quite a bit (a couple of inches) but it still was not level because something was holding it down. John found that our bedroom floor, above the kitchen, was the reason. People had installed a new bedroom floor in a bizarre attempt to keep the kitchen ceiling in place. Instead of repairing the kitchen ceiling, they covered it with multiple layers of stuff and it was still falling down. To prevent the floor above from shaking the ceiling down, they put in new joists on top of the original  bedroom floor. They used hundreds of dollars of joists, covered those with a subfloor and then with carpeting. Because of this new floor and the layers of ceiling underneath, there was at least eight inches difference in height in these two rooms.

There used to be a step going into our bedroom at the top of the stairs.

John uncovered a blue linoleum floor from the 1950s underneath the new floor. The linoleum was in perfect condition. The step into the bedroom and the step down into the closet under the eaves are now gone and the room is larger and level.

Two old cast iron registers that allowed heat to rise from the kitchen
were uncovered under the floor.

Our bedroom, over the kitchen, was always the coldest room in the house. I remember keeping thermometers in the room and once registered a low temperature of 43°F (6°C) for several nights. It was difficult sleeping there. You had to wear socks, sweats, bathrobes and use at least two quilts for those windy, winter nights. There were no heating ducts in any of the upstairs rooms.

We quickly found that the new floor covered heat registers that had been in the original floor (and the original kitchen ceiling), allowing heat to rise from the first floor. But wait! There's more!

John moved all the furniture out and back in and finished restoring the floor in only one day.
You can see the space beneath the floor and the snow on the window.
Snow outside and in!

The west side of the bedroom has windows where we can see the summit of Barton Mountain. But the northwest arctic winds come from there, also. And John found that the room was never sealed when the new floor was built. You can see in the photos above and below the huge space between the wall and floor that was simply left open. This means that winter winds blew directly from outside into the bedroom. No wonder we froze in the winter! What a bizarre way to "improve" a house!

You can look into the kitchen from the southwest corner of the bedroom. The northwest corner of the bedroom led directly to the attic and the outside.

Once the strange openings in the wall were uncovered, Zorro the Cat would let himself outside simply by slipping under the wall, running through the attic, down the attic stairs and to the outside. The wind would come into the room the same way.

Once the newer floor in the bedroom was removed, the house was no longer pinned in place and bounced up a couple of more inches level. The holes in the wall are plugged with insulation for the time being. The southwest holes that opened into the kitchen below are nearly repaired now. And warmth? We are now as warm upstairs as we are downstairs! In fact, since we both like a cool bedroom, we may have to open windows in the winter soon!

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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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Yikes! Another Blog Break!

Red squirrel (Tamiascurus hudsonicus)

Here I sit in the living room with a mask on my face, my new nebulizer drying in a clean towel, coughing and not looking forward to my next antibiotic. John is demolishing the kitchen. The former sun porch is now part of the new huge kitchen. The 110 year old plaster ceiling is coming down. The dust the past two weeks has been horrendous and has made me sick. I am feeling sort of lost here. Can't go outside, don't feel like blogging. I haven't even been taking photographs often! But I have been photographing the birds and squirrels at the feeders. Above is a cute, fat red squirrel that was at the feeder last week.

Ice cliffs of Mount Pisgah on the south shore of Lake Willoughby.

But more about the house later: I have been documenting the progress on the renovations. The photographs show how poorly people built additions on this old house. And how the little forest creatures love this house as much as I do. Enough about renovations and illness. I've had enough of that.

The big news is that the kids found a great place to live in Brownington. It is quiet here without them. There are no dogs to gobble up my spills in the kitchen or the cat yak all over the house. I miss the two little ones, Ironman and Catgirl, a whole bunch. But John has fixed my stereo and now I listen to VPR and VPR Classical. We seem to have stopped watching TV except at bed time. Occasionally we watch movies on the computers (they are still side by side in the living room as they were on the porch). Even though I miss the kids, it is best they are gone. The construction debris and activity is very dangerous and I don't want them around it. They are right up the road, though, so I'll be seeing them as soon as I am healthy again!

Clouded sulphur butterfly

I have been selling photographs, though. Matted and/or framed. I am doing fairly well. I want to get involved in stock photography and craft shows. I have been to two craft shows — the church's Christmas Bazaar and Moonlight Madness. Finally people know what I do! The reactions have been very positive. The photographs that are not of the red squirrel are the photographs that I have sold. I have much work to do with the Barton Library photos and website and blog. I can't work on my summer photographs because my four terabyte server is down! But I do have, and have been slowly editing, photos that are recent.

Nashville warbler

Just thought I should check in! I hardly ever get so personal in the blogs. But there has been lots going on. I hope your holidays are peaceful and I will once again work at getting up to date!

Fractal sunflower

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Back in Vermont Again

My new photoshopped plates — no more vanity plates.

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How Nate (Mostly) and I (A Bit) Prevented a Forest Fire

The burned door: the origin of the fire

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.

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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

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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.

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