Home to a new year

After my lovely visit to NJ I made my way home.  Thelma had emailed that VT 107 was opening Friday morning, and I basked in the happy thought of not making the over-an-hour-long detour at the end of a long drive.  But I got to Stockbridge well after dark and was greeting with flashing signs saying "Route 107 open - use extreme caution", and was happy to have a car in front of me.

The road is where it used to be, but it doesn't feel like it used to (hey, that's called new pavement) and the curves are just a little different, and the slopes are just a little different.  These minor differences keep you on your toes.  I'd forgotten just how far it is from the 107/100 intersection to Tozier's restaurant. Repairs were more than replacing the washed-away section. Repairs were made to the whole length of that stretch of highway.

The White River consumed about four miles of VT 107, and destroyed culverts, small bridges, and roadway for three miles further along.  If you never saw the post-Irene pictures of VT 107, look here  and here.
 
When I started looking for those pictures, I googled "VT107 Irene". I was amazed. It was all about the reopening! The first result was from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Then the Burlington Free Press.  Then the Albany NY Times Union. The Houston Chronicle. A Palm Beach paper. The Deseret News in Salt Lake City.  This was an AP news story, and newspapers across the country picked it up. In early September we learned that Irene's destruction in Vermont was national news, but four full months later? Newspapers are struggling, and this isn't the news-heavy time of year. Still, an awful lot of editors decided this was an end-of-year ending worth covering.  The timing was certainly right,and  it's a good start to 2012.  In Vermont, our worst winter weather is in January and February! 

When I left Vermont on December 26, VT 107 was still closed. I had to go over Camp Brook Road (post-Irene picture here), fully restored in September, to Rochester and then took VT 100 south.  I almost never need to be over there so this was the first time I'd seen this hard-hit area in real life.  It was still a shock to see that the place where a house was washed away is still empty except for an excavator (what did I expect - a  reconstruction miracle?).  Many farm fields still have earth-moving equipment parked in them. Temporary bridges abound.  There were surprising stretches of new pavement, reminders of where the river had been.  Houses looked OK, but upon slowing down, some now appear unoccupied.

Repairs have been made in Braintree and South Royalton.  There is progress in Bethel. Jamaica and Marlboro and Wardsboro in southern Vermont are slowly rebuilding.  Waterbury is finding its way.  Route 9 and Route 4 and Route 100 are open, and now, Route 107. But driving along 100 and 107, the trees that the storm uprooted are still dumped along roadsides and river banks. The river debris and construction equipment are covered with a light dusting of snow, and will become huge mysterious mounds as winter progresses. They look more and more permanent.

The rock trains will run as long as the tracks stay clear and weather permits construction to continue.  But come spring, will there be the energy, the money, the time to finish rebuilding and repairing? To reclaim farm fields again? Will homeowners replace temporary bridges with permanent ones, or leave them in the event of a repeat storm?  All the repairs, heroic and astonishing as they were, don't touch the fact that much of Vermont will never be the same.  I think 2012 is going to be a year of coming to terms with a future that has changed for many people in many ways.

Christmas 2011

Another lovely holiday visit with friends and family!  The drive to NJ was one of the worst in years, because the driver forgot that although Monday was a day off for most folks, it was a going-home day for a whole lot of 'em.  It was like Sunday afternoon in the summer, and replete with fender-benders.  YUCK.

I spent time with Jeri and Sabine, my dear, dear friends who always open their home to me whenever I even hint about coming to NJ.    They had to work, so we hung out in the evening. Jeri and I made a whirlwind trip to the Newark Museum to see some quilts that the museum hasn't exhibited in lo these many years. We all saw "The Descendants" (don't miss it!), and Garrison Keillor's show is from Hawaii, with that lovely slack-guitar music that makes me think of the movie all over again. J&S introduced me to a wonderful British TV series (also available on Netflix!), in the spirit of "All Creatures Great and Small", except that the patients are human, called Doc Martin.  They gifted me with a huge bag of Sabine's Excellent Granola, (and CHOCOLATES) and fed me delicious Turkey Chili.

I spent time with Alice.  She and Pat moved to brand new digs that are Spacious And Modern, and they have the whole unit - hence no downstairs neighbors (garlic at breakfast).  They have a garage and Pat has a workshop! They have two Big Bedrooms.  The whole thing is cause for rejoicing.  We had a delicious lunch at Stamna, which is so close to the new place that I expect Alice will be eating there every weekend ...

I spent time with Dave and Kathy and Katie and Megan. And Alice, too. Katie made the lasagna, and we feasted on lasagna, salad, mozzarella and tomatoes, and delicious white-and-dark-chocolate peppermint bark.  Almost too good to eat.  Almost is the operative word.  In fact, I think we had dessert, but that bark was so good it's overtaken what we did have!  Megan is running winter track this year, still outdoors, which is pretty appalling since it's December. Those girls are growing up!! Alice and Kathy started planning their New Year's brunch (sometime in January) and it sounds like it will be An Event. I received a bag of small treasures - new warm gloves, a jar of scented gels for the bathroom, chocolates (!!) and more of the peppermint bark.

I spent time with Mike and Kate.  They showed up at Alice's and came to Stamna with us! Wednesday I had lunch-and-movie with them  (The Muppet movie, don't miss it!) and we experienced our first Dine-in Theater at Essex Green.  I was full from lunch but I think Mike had his popcorn.  Mike and Kate gave me a wonderfully soft and cozy bathrobe, which I put on immediately upon getting home.  I think my fleece robe can be saved for Really Cold Days.

I spent time with Danielle and Tim, who didn't get to NJ until the 28th.  I went up to the Devincenzos on Friday and had lunch with Tim, Danielle, Mr and Mrs D, Danielle's sister Jen and cute, sweet, baby Isabella.  I think Bella's going to need another sweater to grow into.  I took Tim a birthday cake (!!) and because I had to head to VT I only had time to have one piece.  This is probably a good thing, and it left plenty for everyone else!  Tim had noticed how old and crappy my toaster oven was, so he and Danielle gave me a new one!  What a surprise, and so thoughtful and nice!

Speaking of ovens, I had made an assortment of cookies for everybody, and have a new Christmas Special - rugelach pinwheels! How tasty! How raved about! A new hit, which will probably replace one of the shortbread recipes that is very unreliable.  Count on it, readers!

I finished two knitting projects: an office scarf/neckwarmer for myself, and the beer-can gloves for Mike that were a failure last Christmas.  They fit him! He likes them!  I just have to hide the ends and close a few little knitting holes, and off they go in the mail.

And I spent a lot of time with TV reruns and the New York Times, especially the Arts sections and the Sunday magazine.  You can get the Times in VT, for an exorbitant price, but it only includes  national news/business/sports.  I subscribe to the NYT online, but the free subscription only lets me look at 20 articles per month, and I could use that up in a couple of weekends ...

All in all, a lovely visit. I love Vermont, but I miss everyone already.

It wasn't a cold, it was the flu

Horrible. The whole week has been just horrible. It took me until Thursday to realize that I needed to treat my self like the Sick Person I was, to stop contaminating my co-workers, and go to bed.  But I woke today with no cement-block head, and the unshakeable conviction that fresh air would be a good thing, and that always means I'm really on the road to recovery.

Herewith, a celebratory poem with apologies to Robert Lewis Stephenson (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-land-of-counterpane/)

When I was sick and lay a-bed
I had two pillows at my head
And all my yarn beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I'd knit on scarves or gloves, or go
And sit beside the cozy stove
To watch a movie that I love.

And often I would take a nap
Or lay a book upon my lap
And read (with teacup by my side)
Or watch the snowflakes fall outside.

Fever and cough, while feeling chill,
Kept me upon the pillow-hill.
But health's returned! I now disdain
The pleasant land of counterpane.

When I was sick and lay abed

I had three pillows at my head
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

     -- "The Pleasant Land of Counterpane", Robert Lewis Stephenson

Only two pillows. And sadly, the toys are not beside me, except for a book ("The Tiger's Wife", which I highly recommend). The computer, on which I am typing now, is in the next room. Obviously, the stove, source of Breathe EasyTea, is in the kitchen. And the woodstove, source of wonderfully cozy heat, is not in the bedroom either.

This is a pity party post.  Saturday night I excused myself early from an evening with friends because this Horrendous Cold hit me upside the head, in the course of about an hour, complete with a fever, a sore throat, and a compelling urge to go to bed.  I got a chill earlier in the week, and for me, the outcome is almost always a bad cold.

Today was going to be the day to work around the house, do some picking up, and get out the Christmas decorations.  Instead I slept late, missed my morning coffee with Thelma, and have had TWO serious naps. At 2:11 pm, I am still in flannel pj pants, a turtleneck and sweater and neckwarmer, and my bathrobe.  I did order the photo Christmas cards, though.

Poor pitiful me.

nothin' like a good bowl of soup

I made some great soup tonight for supper.  Soup is really good when you've shovelled many inches of Heavy Wet Stuff in the morning and then tromped around in it late in the afternoon (in the dark) to get horses in.  And I suspect that if you cook the turkey carcass after Thanksgiving,  the broth and meat scraps will make this even more deelish.  These are the quantities I used, and it made enough for 3-4 generous servings.  Vary quantities as you wish to make a soup as thin or thick as you like. * means you can do this part ahead

Roasted vegetable soup essentials
= 1 small butternut (not buttercup) squash (about 1lb.), peeled, seeded and cut in 1" strips
= 1 medium yellow onion, cut in 8ths
= 2-3-4 cloves peeled garlic
= 2-3 medium-sized carrots, peeled, cut lengthwise and then cut into chunks
= 1lb small peeled boiling potatoes, quartered or halved depending on size

= 2-3 cans of chicken broth or 4+ cups turkey broth or a combination of both
= 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, plain or basil/oregano flavored

Roasted vegetable soup options: (use any or all)
= shredded turkey scraps (I used leftover chicken) or slices of kielbasa
= several leaves of regular (not baby) spinach, washed well, stemmed, and sliced or kale
= fresh green beans, cooked (like those big fat green beans cluttering up the freezer)
= cannellini beans  or angel hair pasta, broken into short lengths
(beans and kielbasa would be wonderful)

*Roast the veggies. Lightly coat a roasting pan or cookie sheet with sides with olive oil. Put all the essential veggies on pan/sheet. Sprinkle a little more oil and toss to coat.  Add salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until tender (turning occasionally, and they burn fast ...)  When the veggies are done, separate out the squash and carrots and cut them into smaller dice.

* Put the rest of the roasted veggies in the food processor and add the canned tomatoes. Process until almost smooth.

(If you do all that ahead, bring the ingredients to room temperature before you start soup-making.)

When you're ready to make the soup, put the veggie puree in a 3-quart pot, add enough broth to make a medium-thick soup, and bring it to a boil. Lowe the heat and  let it simmer for 30 minutes or so. (Add more broth if it starts to stick).  If you're going to use angel hair pasta, add it during the last couple of minutes.

Add the squash and carrots along with any options that you want. Add more broth to make the soup the thickness/thinness you prefer.  Cook another 5-8 minutes.

Serve and enjoy.

Life moves on

A post I started in early November and never published, but is still true.

So many things have changed since Irene. Drive up Thayer Brook Road and you'll find the landscape is unbelievably changed.  Thayer Brook is back where it belongs, going through its culverts and no longer threatening Thelma's and Bruce's houses. But the homes, yards and pastures along the road have been changed dramatically.  The devastation in Bethel, Stockbridge, Rochester, Pittsfield, Jamaica, Queechee, Killington,  Bridgewater, and countless other towns will take months to repair.  Some roads will not be fully repaired  until next summer.  In some places, "restoration" will never be possible. Life moves on, whether we like it or not.

We are still nervous when it rains hard.  Some people who come to the Montpelier contradance are already worried about whether they'll feel safe driving on reconstructed roads when the snow begins.  I think many Vermonters will not feel safe until after mud season next year.  Most Vermonters believe that this past summer - warm and wet, and then Irene - demonstrated that our local weather is really changing.  Even those who don't believe in climate change are willing to say that we have entered a different weather cycle. Life moves on, whether we like it or not.

Fortunes at Norwich are changing.  Across the country, grad school enrollments are down, and so are ours.  The graduate school needs to make additional "continuing education" offerings to improve our revenue, and to move away from offering a single product (graduate degrees), but the university isn't ready to invest in the technology upgrades and marketing strategies that we need if we're going to get away from "all our eggs in one basket".  Life moves on, whether we like it or not.

Thelma has closed the horse barn.   She told us a year ago, which is why Raven moved next door when Berta offered me the space this past spring.  Last week Betsy Kelley put her 30-year-old mare down, since she was unlikely to make it through another winter, and Beth Warrel took her mare Annie home. We still plan to have Sunday coffee, but at 9am, not 8am. Thelma is now an Empty-Nester, and although she says she appreciates not doing the chores, and not having to be tied to home, she misses seeing and hearing the horses.

And we're  also all finding out what it means to be part of a global economy.

Many changes, and life moves on, whether we like it or not.  Except for Netflix, who found out the hard way that if it ain't broke perhaps fixes should not be attempted.

Back again

Been a long time away from the blog. The computer died while I was on vacation in August (pined away, I suppose). Then the September term began. Then it took a long time for me to settle on a computer to buy, find a good price, get a friend to put on the software, and now I'm back. Computers come with the latest software, and now my operating system and browser are too advanced for dial-up. So it's SLOW. But I'm working on it.

Today was an at-home day, which I haven't had in a while. I started by repotting some of the Gerber daisies that I usually nurse through the winter. The gorgeous pink one threw up a last set of flowers right as I brought them in. But when I dug up the orange-flowered plant, it had turned into three, and I finally got potting soil to mix with the garden dirt and encourage them all. Thelma gave me one of her geraniums, which she always has good luck with. It may be that Thelma is the geranium-grower and I am the Gerber-daisy grower, in which case we'll have a plant swap in April.

Then I worked in the yard, to start the fall cleanup and do some restoration after the brook cleanup. I replanted a lilac that had to be moved, and a butternut sapling that Tim and I found when he was here, which the contractor was able to rescue. I probably didn't plant the trees deep enough, because it was difficult digging and my energy flagged. I hope that compost and a hefty layer of hay will get them through the winter. If they don't survive, I will be disappointed, but since I didn't buy them I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

In the afternoon I made a much more applesauce than I expected, from a roadside apple tree in front of somebody's vacant vacation house. I was surprised at how sour those dark red apples were when they cooked down, and happily surprised at how little sugar and cinnamon it took to make a tasty not-too-sweet applesauce. Now I have several jars on the bottom shelf of the fridge.

Next is to make the rest of the pickled beets, a slow, messy job. I think I'll leave that for Sunday.

It was nice to be home and not feel that I ever had to "be somewhere". I need to have a day like this more regularly.

Ten years later

We've been hearing the words "Never forget", and certainly on this tenth September 11th there are many things not to forget. No one will forget the terror of helplessness, the terror of escaping, of watching those firefighters walking into certain doom. Not one of us will forget the thoughts we had of the victims in the airliners and their last terrified moments. Each one of us has our own set of memories from that day we will never forget.

In the past ten years, there are other things we have managed never to forget. We have not forgotten how to send people to wars whose purposes are far from clear.

We have not forgotten how to support and invest in companies who send jobs abroad rather than employ our fellow citizens at home.

We have not forgotten that it's easier to persecute immigrants who will work in low-wage jobs than to persecute the employers who pay those low wages.

We have not forgotten how to mislead homebuyers in order to make a profit.

We have not forgotten that it's easier to ignore political fanaticism/incompentence at home, than it is to demand that politicians make decisions that benefit all Americans, not just the Americans in their party.

We have not forgotten that it's easier to think about a national unemployment rate of 9.1% than it is to think about the 17% unemployment rate among Black Americans.

Paul Simon sang "Sound of Silence" this morning. How sad, but how fitting. Financial services organizations no longer serve their account holders, helping customers and businesses grow and prosper: they only serve themselves. The rich continue to grow rich.  The middle class continues to collapse into the ranks of the poor. Employers have decided that "Unemployed need not apply." We continue to talk without speaking, hear without listening, worship neon gods, and ignore the words "written on the subway walls and tenement halls."

There's a saying that "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Ten years after September 11, 2001, we as a nation are not better, not wiser, not stronger. Given everything we have not forgotten, what in heaven's name have we learned?

Ernie (1995-2011)

The Chief Executive Officer (cats have staff, you know) is no more.  He lived a happy life of 16 years, although this year saw him become an old cat, sleeping more (he would have said "conserving his energy"), less adventurous (he would have said "been there, done that"), moving more slowly (he would have said "What's the hurry?").  A recent cat fight - the first all year- probably overstressed an already-weakened heart (that no one knew about), which led to pulmonary edema and then more heart weakening and more edema - a vicious circle with no good outcome.

I will remember
    = his appearance, from wherever he'd been, to supervise any gardening that took place near the brook
    = seeing him dash across the yard and a few feet up a tree, simply to prove that he still could do it
    = having him lounge on the tarp that covered the stacked wood while I labored to stack more next to him ("Ernie, could you help a little bit, please?")
    = the loud meowing at 9pm, demanding "Where's my ice cream?"
    = his ability to hear, from any part of the house, the sound of cheese being unwrapped
    = having him planted at my feet during dinner, waiting for his teaspoon of salad dressing, and hoping for a piece of broccoli, asparagus, or (believe it or not) brussels sprout
    = right after we moved to Churchill Rd, seeing him leap three feet in the air to take down an inattentive  robin in flight (why couldn't it have been a starling?)
    = and, back in Bloomfield, taking late night walks with Ernie on his leash - who was walking whom?

Ernie's life revolved around food (including the occasional rodent snack) and comfort. His worries were the Churchill's barn cat and cat-chasing dogs.  He was a good traveller (on an empty stomach) and a great companion.

Would that throughout our lives we could always be well-fed, comfortable, with a chance to travel, friends by our side, and only a couple of worries.

Looking back at Irene

There's a hand-lettered sign on a house in Randolph that says "Goodnight Irene 2011."

Vermonters have seen news footage of hurricanes - waves crashing against beaches and beachfront homes - storm surges covering boardwalks - palm trees bent like reeds before the wind - yards and malls  like Willowbrook Mall in NJ surrounded by lakes of water.

What we got with Irene was not like those news pictures.

What has made Vermonters so resilient? Pundits right and left have quoted Coolidge's "brave little Vermont" speech (given a year after the 1927 flood), without thinking about how many more people live here now, without recognizing that far fewer of us are the self-sufficient families that were the Vermonters of 1928.  But that resilience is what has drawn people to Vermont, and we still, as a state, see self-reliance as a virtue.  In rural and even semi-rural areas, we have to be able to take care of ourselves. It's why we haven't yet emptied the buckets of extra water in the kitchen and bathrooms, why we keep an assortment of canned goods in the cupboard, why we put up the food from our gardens, why we always have dry stovewood in the house, why many homes have generators (that's got to go on my list).  And we trust that we can call on our neighbors when we need their help, and that we will in turn help them.

Vermont still has a lot of people who farm, log, and build, and a lot of people in other lines of work who possess many of those farming, logging and building skills. We have businesses who sell and maintain machinery and provide building supplies. Lots of these people have heavy equipment and know how to use it.  We have road crews who are experts at keeping roads open and patching up damaged bridges.  And they have all turned out in droves.  Everyone knows that being cut off, being stranded, can be very dangerous in our state.  Everyone knows that by the end of October  - less than 60 days away - the ground will be hard to work, and that no rebuilding can be confidently started once November starts and the cold weather sets in.

But I think Vermont's biggest asset is its history of Town Meeting.  Many "town meetings" were called: among the homeowners on Riford Brook Road, and in the towns of Pittsfield, Rochester, Waterbury, Wardsboro and others. Today's official Town Meetings  (the ones on the first Tuesday in March) are pretty different from the original ones, but every town in Vermont has that history to draw on - that formal, agenda-driven, Moderator-led, Roberts' Rules-governed, thoughtful process of considering the community's needs and how those needs will be met. Every Vermonter has experienced through Town Meeting how a community can come together, identify needs, marshall resources, and make the decisions necessary to keep people well and to get things done.  And they will do those things they decided on, because the welfare of community depends on keeping its collective word.

Town Meeting and the ethic of neighbor helping neighbor have seen Vermonters through the past week.

Observations on enforced idleness

No, not the enforced idleness of illness or injury.  The enforced idleness of being away from home with a bare minimum of "things to do".

At the church service auction Jeri and Sabine had made the winning bid on a week at a summer house, and they invited me to join them.  I couldn't stay for the week but last Friday I headed for NJ and Saturday Jeri and I drove down to the house, and I stayed until today (Tuesday), when I drove back to Vermont.

Not being a beach person, I was ill-prepared.  Vermonters who go tubing, or swimming at the local pond or lake wear shorts over their bathing suits, and grab a convenient towel.   Beach People, however, wear proper beach coverups. So I  bought one. Actually, two. Because not having a hat as sun protection at the ocean is just plain dumb, Beach People also wear Beach Hats.  I left my hat of choice at home, by the front door.  I had to buy another, the only one in the shop that fit. Kate Estler would recognize it.  It's HUGE, like hers.  Not red, though.  I also do not have a beach towel.  I mooched one from the supply at the vacation house.  I will have to remedy that defect before I get asked to the beach again. And get a second bathing suit, just for variety's sake.

Some of you, who know that I am not really a Beach Person, are now wondering  if I'm suddenly looking forward to another beach vacation.  Well, yes, I am.  Either by invitation or because I will plan such a trip myself.  It was a vacation that I've never had before.  It was agenda-less.

An agenda-less beach vacation goes like this. 

Get up at a reasonably early hour, unless you're Sabine who gets up at 5am and bikes a great many miles to start her day.
Drink some coffee, eat some breakfast. Identify the birds at the feeder.
Put on swimwear and coverup, grab a book, pile the snacks, beverages, and beach stuff into the car, drive to beach (about a mile) by 9 am or so. 
Trundle beach stuff out to the right spot, lay out towels, blankets, set up umbrellas.

Get in the ocean for a bit.
Sit under the umbrellas and read.
Get in the ocean for a bit.
Sit under the umbrellas and read some more. Maybe nap.
Talk with your friends.
Jump up and watch when dolphins begin appearing in the water.
Nap.
Thank the person who went to get sandwiches.
Get in the ocean for a bit.
Walk along the beach.
Sit under the umbrellas and read some more.
Talk about what you're reading.
Have a salty snack, and some water.
Get in the ocean for a bit.

When everyone agrees, pack everything up and drive back home. Maybe 2pm or 3pm, or 4. Or later.
Shower.
Collectively invent some dinner that is tasty and easy.
Talk about working in academia with another invited guest.
Read some more.
Talk about music festivals with Sabine's brother.
Play a hilarious card game called "Spoons".
Go to bed.

Next day, repeat.
Next day, repeat.

I didn't take knitting.  TOO HOT, and knitting surrounded by sand is a risky business.
I didn't take the camera to the beach. Sand is risky to camera workings.
I did more reading than I've done in months. I was reading for work as well as pleasure but I enjoyed all my reading.

A beach vacation differs considerably from day trips to the beach. On a beach vacation, you're already there. There's not lots of packing, not lots of driving, not lots of traffic (if you're lucky), and little or no worry about what time it is. On a beach vacation, time doesn't march on. It just glides by.  A vacation at the beach means that you intend to spend a lot of time just sitting.

Most of the time on vacation, if I'm sitting, I'm really waiting to get up and do something.  A state park vacation means that trails call to be walked. A mountain vacation means a call to hiking. A visit to a new city or town means a call to sightseeing.  A singing vacation means, well, singing.  These are all fine vacation activities because they aren't work. But at the beach, unless you are a competitive swimmer, or a fisherman, very little calls out "Do me".  



A vacation from doing.  I'm all for it.

what a day ...

Well, as you all know, the day started like this:

and this:

And the farrier came on time (!) to trim hooves and replace horse shoes.

And I went to work.

And it was bright and sunny.

And about 2pm  the National Weather service gave warnings about Dreadful Thunderstorms.

And all the porch windows at home were open, and the door to the porch and the door to the bedroom deck were open.

And the storm was going to start sometime around 4pm.

So I dashed out of work at about 3:45, and the clouds were magnificently threatening, and I tried to use the camera on the phone but I couldn't figure it out on the run (so to speak).

And I got home in time to close the doors and windows, Hooray!

But before I got to the house I saw water across the road - and it wasn't raining yet.

I saw my road foreman neighbor walking toward me. "Ray, what is going on?"

"I think the beaver dam just let go", he said.  "The brook just ran out of the bank into my yard." Oh no.

Oh yes.  Here's what I drove through to get to the house:

Where's the culvert? Where's the bank of the brook?  That's not dirt road you see between the phone poles.  That's water, running down the hill through that newly-reconstructed driveway.

All this happened about 4:15. By 4:30 everything looked quite normal. But like Ray said, when several olympic swimming pools worth of water come down all at once, it's quite a flood.  He gets to pull that tree out of the culvert tomorrow.

My part of the brook stayed in its banks but the sump pump was working like crazy. WHY?  I opened the cellar door.  3 inches of water in the basement. WHY?

There's a drain in the floor.  When I had the stream dredged, the man doing the work remembered that there was a drain pipe from the cellar through the stream bank - he found it and fixed it.   "Remember to cover the end in the fall so it doesn't freeze up." I did that, too.

The cellar floor is maybe 6 1/2 or 7 feet  below ground level. The drain pipe comes out  about two feet above the streambed.  The water in the photo above is about 5 feet deep. So the water backed into the basement through the drain.  If it hadn't been for the sump pump, who knows how much water I might have found?

And now I know why the shopvac and I are about to spend an hour in the basement.

Oh yuck.  When it rains for 3 days and you get runoff water in the basement, you clean up water.  When a flooded brook backs water into your cellar, it's flood water and you clean up MUD.  I used the broom to push most of the muddy water (think "soup") down the drain, but I will have to put fans down there to dry it out and then use the shop vac on the "mud dust".  I will pour a couple of buckets of water down the drain to clear the mud from the drain.  Thankfully the sump pump does not seem to be full of mud, but I may call the sump pump guy to come and make sure.  I think I'm going to have to close the floor drain. Water I can deal with. Mud, not so much.

Another award on my bulletin board

You all know that each year in the first or second week of June I leave the human race and spend the entire week on the Norwich campus (I sleep in my own bed, but my hours are pretty much 7 am to 8 or 9 pm) shepherding students and faculty through a Residency week, which brings all Norwich's online students together for the first time.  Each program creates activities of one kind of another for their students, and the week culminates in graduation.

At the end of June we have an all-hands celebration that brings all the Residency and post-Residency activities to a close.  It's a delicious pot-luck lunch followed by a fun-loving awards ceremony.  The Associate Dean sends out an email requesting nominations for things we've seen one another doing or saying that deserve an award.  Somehow everyone manages to get an award for something.

This year there was the "Mr./Ms Congeniality Award" to two staff members who spent each meal (we took all three meals on campus) with a different group of students, and between the two of them met students from every one of our programs.

My friend Sophia got the "Energizer Bunny Award" because she did everything everywhere. She just kept going and going and going.

One Program Director had to manage activities for and interact with students in three different programs.  He was always on the run, always too busy, always smiling.  He got the "Synchronized Swimmer Award" for smiling above the water while frantically paddling below.

Another Program Director, when in his academic robes, wears three large academic medals on ribbons. They denote his chairmanship of the National Nursing Educators Board, and two other kinds of academic honors.  He got the "Heavy Metal Award". 

Our Residency Director was praised for the vast amount of planning he did, and the vast number of tasks he managed to completion.  The praise ended with "We all knew that, if required, Kevin could leap tall buildings with a single bound." He got the "Man of Steel Award." You see how it goes.

In 2005 SGCS rented cell phones for all the staff, to make it easier for us to communicate with one another.  All of you know that - at least in Vermont - my cell phone is never on.  One day, sitting at the lunch table with MSIA students and SGCS staff, I heard this little musical sound. Several times.  "I wonder what that is?", I said.  And Dr. Kabay (then Program Director) looked at me over his glasses and said, "Elizabeth, that's YOUR CELL PHONE."  Riotous laughter erupted. At the 2005 post-Residency celebration I got the "Alexander Graham Bell Award", and it's still up on my bulletin board.

Today it happened again.  I was sick the first three days of Residency with a horrible cold.  One afternoon I got to that  inevitable "I have to take a nap" stage.  Since I didn't dare fall asleep in a lecture hall full of students and a guest speaker, I left the room by its back door, which leads to a stairway.  I sat on the landing floor, leaned against the wall, and dozed off.  I was awakened by the concerned voice of the Residency Director: "Elizabeth, are you OK?"  Well, this afternoon I received the "Rip Van Winkle" award. Riotous laughter erupted. It's assumed its rightful place on my bulletin board.

Thankfully all these awards are given with humor and in good spirits.  It's good that we can laugh at ourselves as well as recognize and appreciate the hard work that each of us does.

I can use my front door again

This post was going to be titled "Bigger baby birdies", but events progressed at a very rapid pace!  The babies grew by amazing leaps and bounds. (Click any of the pictures in any post, to see them bigger, then use your back button to return here.)

June 27: Baby #1 is getting bigger for sure

June 28:Baby #2 is becoming assertive!

June 29 : Stretching.  Look at the speckled breast

Feed us! Feed us!

I think I'll see what wings are all about.  Besides, it's getting crowded in here!

June 30:

Look how big we are, Mom!  Did you bring enough for both of us?

This nest is SO small! We gotta get out and shake our feathers and do some preening!!

And wing-flapping and leg-stretching!

OK Mom, whatcha got for us now? 

 Forget the nest. We'll just sit here.

In fact, we'll just sit here and take a nap.

I took this last picture at 6pm, and went outside to do some yard work.  When I came back in at 8pm, they were gone.  Yep, fledged. 

The first two robin posts are:here, then here

Birdie update!!

June 24 (see the baby head peeking up?)

June 26 (all the following)

One baby!

Two babies!

Birdie with a yellow bill hopped upon my window sill

Apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson.  The Robin has continued to set on the nest, not upon the window sill but in the door overhang.

June 11:

June 15: (found a good camera setting)

June 17 (1):

June 17(2) :

and (ta-daah) June 21:

I think there are two babies.

Spring - hay and robins

The weather is improving bit by bit - Saturday was just lovely, and during the afternoon my neighbor Ray Churchill mowed two of his hayfields.  Today he raked them.  Click to enlarge, and you'll see that the windrows wrap around the end of the field, and you might glimpse a couple of lovely Jersey cows.

A robin has decided to build her nest under the eaves of the front door overhang.  It took me a little time to figure that out, and then to devise measures to keep her from fleeing the nest.  Now I park the car behind the new stovewood pile (instead of next to it). I put the storm glass back in the front door (can't take photos through the screen - you get pictures of the screen!) , and draped some dark fabric over the lower 3/4 of the door window so she doesn't see all of the light in the house, and doesn't see so much of my moving around.  I put yellow caution tape across the door to remind myself, the letter carriers, and delivery people not to use that door.  I use the porch door for going and coming.  And I get to the back yard by walking all the way around the front.  So far, so good.

I'm trying to take robin pictures.  Here are two.  The first one, taken this morning,  is admittedly fuzzy but more colorful.  The second one was taken well after sunset, but I did some reading about camera settings and it's in better focus.  There's no way I can see into the nest, even on a ladder in the living room - the edge of the overhang is too far away to peer into.  I'm standing on a chair, and what I need is a tripod.  But a tripod 7 feet tall is hard to come by. 

As long as she keeps sitting I'll keep trying to get a little closer.  According to the National Geographic site, robins set 50 minutes out of every hour.  I'm not sure she's that diligent, although she seems to be there most of the night.  Perhaps as hatching time approaches she'll be on the nest more. 

Weather

Bad weather has been plaguing the nation. Vermont has had the wettest April and May since they started keeping records. My sump pump has been busy every day since early April (for the first time since I put it in 2-3 years ago). Roads in the Northeast Kingdom washed out from those April rains.

In late April a tornado passed through North Carolina and Virginia and I worried about students and faculty members. While I was in Florida, rain and the last of the snow melt made Lake Champlain overflow, flooding the Burlington waterfront and many lakeside homes, including the summer home of some friends, who have never had water in that camp in the 50 years the house has stood. Then the Mississippi and its tributaries began to flood. Then there was the Tuscaloosa tornado. Then the Joplin tornado.  Then the Oklahoma City tornado, and one of my co-workers lives there - we got an email at 5am the next day saying he and his wife were OK. 

Take a look at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/ssd/mapping/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes_of_2011 and be amazed.

The recent weather events have made a lot of people jumpy.  So it did not help when yesterday (Thursday) at noon the National Weather Service (NWS)  in Burlington issued a tornado warning for the entire northern half of the state.

I can see most of the weather heading my way when I'm home.  I left work early so I could finish mowing the lawn before the rain hit, and then I did some gardening, all the while watching the clouds form over the mountains, and the skies get darker, and the rain as it came out of the clouds many miles away.

At 6pm I went into the house to get something, and heard a NWS  tornado warning.  Before I got out the door I heard another one.  I really hustled to get everything put away. I ran two 5-gallon buckets of water.  I parked the car very close to the house (don't ask why, I just do this). Ernie was even prudent enough to come in the first time I called him.

I have never EVER heard NWS warnings like I did yesterday.  There was a warning every one or two minutes, precisely describing the storm features (tornado! straight-line winds! hail! torrential rain!, etc) and naming  the communities in danger (Brookfield was never named, but Northfield - where I work - was).  These minute-by-minute warnings went on for about an hour and a half.  The lightning up toward Northfield was intense - big heavy lightning streaks, not delicate spidery things.  The weather that came over my house was a loud, hour-long thunderstorm - big, but still a summer storm. Thank heaven.  The radio began to broadcast reports of flooding in Barre and Montpelier.

This morning I learned what really happened.  The thunderstorm that spent a hour over my house was one of a line that rained for 5 hours, and dumped 6" of water in many towns north of me.  Roads large and small are closed or washed out.  The Winooksi River went out of its banks as the flooded tributaries drained into it, and the downtowns of Montpelier, Barre and Waterbury were under several feet of water by midnight.  The Dog River flooded Route 12, cutting off the local route from Northfield to Montpelier.  It also went out of its banks in Northfield and threatened Mayo Nursing Home, which is near my office.  The Mayo staff and the Norwich facilities crew evacuated all the residents to the new (air-conditioned) dorm on the campus, well above the river, sometime in the dead of night. This morning Northfield had no land-line phone service (although most Internet connections worked) but many parts of Berlin (near Montpelier) had no phones and no Internet either.  The State says that the Winooski and the Stevens Branch (in Barre) had water levels almost matching the Great Flood of 1927. This is runoff, so water levels will lower quickly, if there's no more rain.  But all this water is heading for the lake, which has been above flood stage for four weeks.

Closer to home, we have to take the long way to Randolph again. Update: I put West Street pictures on Facebook. At the bottom of West Street, the big culvert got blocked as it did in 2007, the water went over the road, washed out the bank beneath the road (and that part of the road), and as in 2007 ran across the Ilsley's hayfield down to the foot of Bear Hill Road. There the water met the big brook at the bottom, which went out of its banks and damaged the very same houses that it damaged in 2007.  Ayers Brook, which caused so much damage in 2007, is set to do it again if the storms tonight are as predicted.  A house on Route 12 which had a small drainage brook running behind the barn now has a new brook running within a few feet of the back of the house, in a chasm three feet wide and three feet deep.

I called my friends George and Gail to see if I could help them at their flower farm, much of which is covered today by the Winooski River.  I can't get there.  The part of  Route 2 I'd have to drive is covered with water for  a mile.

This is a two-day post. I lost the Internet connection last night before I could publish with yesterday's pictures. Now it's 7 pm Friday and after a hot, sunny day the thunderstorms have started again.  The NWS said this would happen, and they're right.  The flash flood warnings are up, there's thunder and crackling lighting, and it's a goose-drowner of a storm. Right now, Brookfield and Randolph residents have some damage, but are basically inconvenienced, and very lucky.

grrrrrr

Because it is finally Spring, I knew I had to get the winter tires off.  People who drive on dirt roads are foolish if they swap tires before mud season is completely over.  That would not be me.

I also believed that I needed an alignment.  When I drove to NJ the steering wheel shimmied at 65 mph and the car drifted to the right.  People who drive on dirt roads (or on route 12 through the Brookfield Gulf) are more likely to need an alignment than our paved-road neighbors.

My mechanic in Montpelier does a first-class job on everything, but he doesn't do alignments.  I called a local mechanic in Randolph and found that they did it.  So I took the tire swap and the alignment there.

"Please be sure to balance the tires." "If your summer tires are on rims they don't need to be balanced." "Yes they do.  I live on a dirt road and drive on dirt roads every day.  If you don't balance the tires you will see me and the car again on Monday."  Later, the mechanic said "Gee, three of those tires needed balancing."  Well, they weren't going to balance themselves sitting in the shed all winter.

Then we got to the alignment.  My car went on the machine and someone with a "check engine light" drove in, followed by someone with a close-to-destroyed left rear tire, having driven on a flat tire for about a mile and a half.  So my car sat and sat and sat.  Then the printer that  prints the alignment results wouldn't print.  The mechanic fussed with that until I finally said "Do you need the printout to know the car is aligned?" "No.  The instruments tell me it is.  The printout is for you." "Don't let the desire for perfection interfere with good enough.  I've been here two hours and I need to get home".  It was 3:30, I had to leave for Burlington at 5:45 and still had the back half of the yard to mow.

So he took the car for its required spin around the block and said "The TPS light is still on." "Of course it is.  The winter tires are 16" and are not TPS. The summer tires are 17" and they are TPS."  "That will take some time and I have to put it back on the lift."  "Nope, don't do it.  I need to get home."

At least the alignment is done, and the trip to Burlington proved it was worth it. But my mechanic knew about the TPS last year without me telling him.  That's why I drive 15 miles north of work to get the car taken care of, instead of 6 miles into Randolph.  I hope that TPS light isn't important.

Update: On the way home I squirrelled around on the dirt road, so I got out my tire pressure gauge. They didn't check the pressure in the rear tires. It's supposed to be 32 psi. It was 15. The TPS light is off now.

At long last

Well, after many false starts, it must be Spring. 

I have not lit the woodstove all week.
More and more flowers appear: the peonies, the lupine and the bachelor buttons have shoots.
More dandelions than I have ever seen have erupted out of the ground.
The rhubarb keeps growing.
The trees are leafing out so much that it’s time to change the blog picture.
Ray Churchill has let the cows out.
I did some weeding earlier in the week.

And lastly,
I mowed the lawn.

Maybe I have to go on vacation to get Spring to come.

Finally ...

Spring flowers!!


Daffodils by the house door...

 More daffodils ...

One of about a dozen columbines under the birch tree



Chinodoxia that found their way into the rock garden (I don't remember planting them there)

 This rhubarb has become this

and these little pink shoots                       

will likely be this when I get back from FL and DC

Harking back to younger days ...

It snowed AGAIN today. But enough about the weather. I spent the day with about 20 other people in Putney, Vermont, a little more than 2 hours south of Brookfield. We had a terrific day.

Doing what, you might ask? We spent the day learning - or relearning - and singing songs recorded by the Everly Brothers.

Don and Phil Everly came out of a Kentucky radio music family. You can read details on Wikipedia. They really captured the youthful rock ‘n roll music audience in the late 1950s, when I was (ahem) entering my teenage years.

I’m not sure how many of you know what a sea change Elvis Presley’s music was. It was not the bland plain vanilla we were used to, it was in your face, it had a very big beat. His first big hit was “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956 and Elvis had a terrific voice. But to me a lot of his music was mostly loud. Because Elvis had come out of the south, that opened the door for other country-influenced singers like the Everly Brothers. Their first hit was “Bye Bye Love” in 1957.

I loved Everly Brothers music from the start. Their harmonies were great because you could sing them, and singing along just wasn’t realistic with Elvis’s music. And you could dance to all of it. Of course, you could dance to Chuck Berry, too, but I still loved Don and Phil. And they were so good-looking. (Their pictures are all over the net.) Lots of girls loved Don and Phil …

The Everly Brothers had a long, long string of hits, each as good as or better than the previous. They were on Ed Sullivan and other TV shows, just like Elvis was. They were wonderful.

So today we had this super-nostalgic workshop led by singer Val Mindel, who lives in Vermont and teaches harmony of one sort or another all over the country, and Kate Breslin, a well-known folk singer who sang with Val way back when. Everly Brothers songs are in very singable close harmony. Val brought lots of song lyrics and we sang every song twice, switching between the Don and Phil parts. I discovered that I remembered almost all the songs including “Bye Bye Love”, “All I Have To Do Is Dream”, “Cryin’ In the Rain”, “So Sad”, “Problems”, “Devoted To You”, “When Will I Be Loved”, “Long Time Gone”, “When Will I Be Loved”,and “Walk Right Back”. Everyone, including me, had Such A Good Time!!

If you’re the right age, lots of tunes should be running through your head now!!