Trails and Tales

A Cool August!

[Canaan Valley, WV]

I've been fortunate to spend the past week at the cabin.  The first three days were overcast and even cool with a little rain here and there, but it was chilly enough in the evenings to require a fire in the fireplace.  A real treat in August!

I came out because we had a long range planning committee meeting on Friday, which I always find interesting.  Aside from the meeting, I did a lot of reading and relaxing inside those first few days, but Saturday the weather cleared and we had three straight days of sunny skies, low temperatures and low humidity - perfect for hiking.  I had volunteered to make a map of our community's 12 or so miles of trails, so I got out my GPS unit and hiked three long trails, taking GPS readings, notes, and pictures along the way.  Now I have to plot the points on a map - which will take time.

I'm returnung to Maryland this evening because I have to get blood drawn tomorrow for my physical Friday.  Monday I plan to return to Canaan because I have a guy coming out next week to look at our chimney which needs repair.

The picture is of the buck that sleeps in our meadow every afternoon.

July is now August

[Canaan Valley, WV]

It's been a month since I last posted here.  It doesn't seem that long.  I'm trying to think of what has happened this month.  I worked on the house (sanding the spackled major wall repairs, and painting the repairs), I spent a week in West Virginia, blogged a lot, attended a minor league baseball game in Woodbridge and a play at the Shakespeare theater, both with Angie.  Now I'm back in West Virginia for the weekend.

I drove out here Friday afternoon. As soon as I put the groceries away I hiked about 4 miles in the wildlife refuge. To get there one has to cross this rickety old bridge,  Every year it gets more rotted and decrepit, but the trails are perfect for quick 3-5 mile hikes needed to keep in shape.

Friday night a loud thunderstorm came crashing through about 3:30 in the morning waking everyone in the valley.  It lasted for 15 minutes and once it had died away an even worse storm blasted through and this one lasted an hour.  I finally turned on the light and read until it finally faded away. At least it brought cooler air with it!

Saturday morning I had to attend a Board meeting, and then a second special meeting where the current President of homeowner's association actually whined about not being renominated for a second term as President.  He wasn't nominated because, um, people didn't like the way he ran the association.  So we sat there and listened to him complain, and then left. The guy's 68 and acts like this is the first time he has never gotten his way.  Jeesh!

Saturday afternoon was overcast and threatening so a friend invited me over to his cabin to play Scrabble with him and his wife.  His wife blew us away.  Wow.  She was putting down words with double letters and triple words while I was stuck adding an O to a D to make DO.  Not my game obviously...

Today I noticed that the aforementioned President had posted an insulting diatribe about how badly the Board had treated him on our community blog.  Since I'm partly responsible for the blog I sent him a strongly worded email asking him to edit his post.  He called me and we talked for a long time.  I didn't think I made much progress, but eventually he did edit his post and I felt like I had accomplished something.  Whew!

The politics in our homeowner's association fascinates me.  There are a lot of good, smart people out here, but there are also a lot of egos and some who have never mastered the art of diplomacy.  Politics is the art of getting things done in a group. I learned a lot when I was president of the PTA all those years, and I've learned a lot out here just by listening and watching.  It came in handy when I wanted a new trail up the mountain across from our cabin added to our trail system.

This afternoon I hiked the wildlife refuge trail again,  It was much cooler and dryer today, in fact it is so cool this evening that I had to make a fire in the fireplace.  In August!

Tomorrow I will drive back to Maryland.  Tuesday and Wednesday I'll help Kelsi and Chuck pack their storage pod in prep to their move.  I was bribed with pizza.  It works every time!

Still Hanging Around Silver Spring. Yes, Still Here. In Silver Spring. Still.

[Silver Spring, MD]

It was a nice coincidence. Kelsi had to spend some time down here in Silver Spring Monday, I was still hanging around Silver Spring instead of the cabin, and Ari wanted to see "To Fly" at the Smithsonian. So we all met (including Abby), drove to Silver Spring, parked, walked to the Metro station and took the subway to the L'Enfant metro station We walked a few blocks to the Air and Space, had lunch, and Ari got to see her movie.  We all did.

It brought back a lot of memories of when Kelsi and Jeff were kids and we saw he same movie together, 20 some years ago.  Now a third generation joined Kelsi and me.  Only a parent gets misty over things like this...

Tuesday, I drove Angie to Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County's county seat.  The court was meeting to appoint someone to take responsibility for closing out her sister's estate.  They appointed Angie.  This will require a lot of her time, and it will be complicated by the fact that her sister was divorced but her ex- wants custody of their three kids, and the money from the estate.  Could get tricky.

Wednesday I attended the retirement part for one of my former employees.  Roger had spent time in the Navy and Coast Guard before retiring and coming to work at NOAA in the Coast Pilot Branch.  All told he had 53 years of government service!  It was nice to see all my old Coast Pilot friends again.

Last evening I took Angie to her tennis lesson.  It started at 8:00 and ended at 9:30. It was held at the DC tennis complex next to the Carter Barron theater. It was on a lighted outdoor court.  The weather was perfect and the surrounding park was packed with families enjoying the weather.  Give kids a big park, a playground, and nice evening weather and watch them have fun.  Makes me wish I was a kid again!

Tomorrow morning we're leaving for the cabin, just for the weekend.  The electric bill for the cabin just came.  It was just $23 - for two months.  I suspect either the hot water heater or the refrigerator has failed since we were there last (5 weeks ago). If it's the refrigerator, we might be back in Silver Spring sooner than planned!

Have a great 4th!

[Silver Spring, MD]

Tuesday I visited the butterfly house at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton for the first time.  I've been meaning to take my camera there and see if I could get any good pictures, considering that butterflies don't stop for very long in one place.  I took about 200 pictures in an hour and a half, and when I downloaded them later onto the computer at home I was surprised how many came out so well.  My camera, a Canon Powershot S3 has a zoom telephoto lens with a macro setting so some of these were with the zoom and some were with the macro.  Some are also cropped.  Here are a few of my favorites.

A Weird Summer So Far

[Silver Spring, MD]

This has been a weird summer so far.  Angie and I spent Memorial Day at the cabin.  After we returned I planned to stay a few days in Maryland and then go back to the cabin for a week or so, in fact we left some steaks in the fridge thinking I would be right back.  It never happened.  A dump truck backed into me the day after I returned and that started a series of events that has prevented me from leaving Maryland.

The damage to the Jeep was relatively minor.  But the owner of the truck refused to cooperate and I had to spend a week tracking him down.  Then we had workmen come and replace the rotted wood on the front of the house, and stain the deck.  That took four days.  The body shop told me it would take about four days to fix my car so I took it in Monday, June 9. expecting to pick it up that Friday.  It wasn't done Friday so I had to keep my rental car over the weekend.  My insurance company then informed me that the truck that backed into me was not insured so I had to pay the $500 deductible AND the rental out of my pocket.  Now having to keep the rental over the weekend was costing me.  Saturday the workmen returned to finish painting the new wood facing on the house and install a new storm door, so again, I was stuck at home.

Monday I expected to pick up the Jeep and head to West Virginia.  It wasn't done.  Tuesday.  It wasn't done.  Wednesday.  It wasn't done.  Thursday. It wasn't done.  Friday.  They said they were waiting for the painter to paint the two tiny pinstripes on the front, but finally at 3:30 they called and said it was done.  The four day job took almost two weeks.  So now I have my Jeep back and I'm out $1,500 (including the cost of replacing my badly cracked windshield as long as it was in the shop).  Tomorrow I begin my fight to recover my money from the truck owner.

Last Sunday the weather cleared and cooled a bit so I drove downtown to take some pictures,  I parked at the Tidal Basin and walked around it, past the Jefferson Memorial and the FDR Memorial. Then I crossed Independence Street and walked along the Reflecting Pool to the WWII Memorial, then walked to the Smithsonian Castle Building and the Ripley Garden next to it.  The garden is breathtaking and few people even know it's there.  Here are some of the pictures I took.

Friday night Angie treated me to an Earl Klugh concert at the Strathmore Concert Hall, our first time there. Angie has been a big Earl Klugh fan for 30 years!  He's a jazz guitarist and composer.  Accompanying him were 2 keyboardists, a drummer, a saxophone player and a bass guitarist.  The performance was tremendous. One of the keyboardists and the drummer had separate solos that brought us screaming to our feet.  It was a  wonderful performance.  After the show, five of the musicians, including Earl Klugh, sat down at a table and chatted and signed autographs.  We weren't expecting that and by the time we worked our way up to Earl Klugh Angie was as giddy as a school girl, and when we got to Earl, Angie told him how long she has been a fan, he got up and put his arm around her and I got my cell phone out and snapped a picture.  Angie still thinks she died and went to heaven.  What a great guy!

 I'm not quite sure of my plans this week.  West Virginia?  Sophie wants to have a birthday party for Perry and Bradley this week.  Angie wants to spend the July 4th weekend at the cabin, but that would only be for a few days.  The workmen are coming back to do more work on the house the weekend of July 12th, further complicating things - and gas keeps going higher every day.

[Silver Spring, MD]

Today the handymen came back to do more work on the house.  They're still not done. They're coming back July 12 to do more to the trim around the chimney.  All the houses in our subdivision were built at the same time and the windows need replacing and rotted trim needs replacing and painting, and leaky roofs need fixing.  It's funny, as soon as people leave for work the worker's trucks arrive and the ladders go up!

I had to stick around all day to move stuff and answer questions, etc.  During breaks I worked on Angie's family history, searching the census records online and entering data into The Master Genealogist database I maintain for both families.  Today I was working on Angie's great-great-grandparents, Philip and Maria Holt.  The first thing I noticed was that they had a total of 15 known children.  But even more remarkable is the fact that of these 15, 10 were twins.  Maria gave birth to five sets of twins!  I checked and it's not a record - there are cases of as many as 8 sets of twins by the same woman, but there have probably been less than 25 occurrences of 5 or more sets of twins on record in North America.  It might also offer a hint as to where Maria, born in Maryland but of African descent, was from because women from the Yoruba tribe (Nigeria) and the Hausa tribe (Ghana, Ivory Coast) are noted for having twins.

Genealogy never ceases to amaze!

[Silver Spring, MD]

After spending four days trapped in our house while the carpenter ripped all the rotted wood off our house and replaced it, the weekend brought a release.  Saturday morning I hauled all the old rotted wood to the landfill and then ran errands.

After lunch I drove over to the Eastmoor house where I got to visit with Ari.  We looked at her now Tinkerbelle book.  She got it as a graduation (pre-school) present from her Granma.  It came with a picture viewer and a kaleidescope too.  Then Ari taught me how to play Dora Uno.  We played that a lot.  Then we made funny faces at each other.

Today I had breakfast at Mayorga's and ran a few more errands.  Then Marge dropped Ari off at our house and we drove her home.  When we got to Kelsi and Chucks, we all decided to go out to eat and then hit the ice cream place for desert on the way home.  After the ice cream, we had to go to Kelsi and Chuck's and sit down for awhile to recover.  It was the first time Angie had seen their house.  Ari gave Angie a guided tour of the whole house (especially her bedroom!).

Tomorrow the car goes in the shop to get fixed it will take all week I'm told.  I'll have a rental.  Next weekend we have workmen coming to paint the trim and stain the deck, and do some work inside, too.

Look what I found in our porch light. A bird nest with some little eggs!

The Joys of Owning a Home

[Silver Spring]

Last year we had to have our crappy, drafty windows replaced.  It set us back a bit but it was worth it in energy saved.  Last fall we discovered a pillar and a corner of our front overhang was badly rotted and needed to be replaced.  The carpenter did a nice job but told us a lot more wood and molding needed to be replaced this spring.  So now he's back and we found a lot more wood in the back that had also rotted so he's going to replace the bad wood and cover it with coil facing to protect the wood from now on.  While he's here he's going to power wash the whole house and deck and seal and stain the deck plus some drywall work inside.

A house is wonderful thing to own, and brand new houses look great. But no matter if it's new or old, houses rot and materials deteriorate a little bit every day and it all adds up.  When the carpenters or plumbers or electricians hand you the bill, those are the days that renting doesn't sound like such a bad idea!

Speed Traps and Dump Trucks

[Silver Spring, MD]

Wow. It's Saturday already.  This week went by fast, partly because it was a short week due to Memorial Day on Monday, and partly because the world is picking on me. Again.

Like all good things, the three days we spent at the cabin came to an end Monday and we had to return to Maryland so Angie could go back to work Tuesday.  We threw everything - including the cats - into the car and started for home.  We got as far as Wardensville (near the West Virginia border) and we drove into a speed trap.  Right outside of Wardensville the highway goes down a steep mountain and partway down the speed limit drops from 65 to 50.  It's a little hard to brake down to 50 while going down a steep hill and evidently the State Troopers know it because he was set up right where the speed limit drops and he probably ticketed every car coming down the mountain. Including me.

Let me digress a bit here.  I drive a lot every year and in the past 30 years I've gotten just 3 speeding tickets...all in this one county in West Virginia!  The first two I got there upset me a bit, but this one was the final straw.  I'm going to fight it. I know I'll lose but if they are going to get $260 from me I'm going to make them earn it.

Okay, back to the story of my week because it gets even more interesting.  The next morning I was driving to the park where I walk.  I was following a gravel truck. The truck driver missed his turn, stopped, and backed up into my car.  I couldn't back up because there was a car in back of me.  It took me all week to finally track the owner down and find out if he has insurance (answer: probably, but not certain).

Other than that my week was quiet.  I was able to get in some good walks because the mornings have been quite nice.

It looks like I'll be spending the coming week here in Silver Spring because we have a handyman scheduled for two days this week plus my car will probably be in the shop most of the week.  This means I'll get to attend Ari's graduation Friday! 

Barfing Cats, Sleeping Racoons

It looks like spring has finally come to Canaan.  We (Me, Angie and the cats) drove out Saturday morning in perfect weather and the blue skies and cool temperatures have hung around all weekend.  Mercator kept his record intact by barfing even before we got off the highway and onto the winding, mountain roads.  Other than that it was a very pleasant trip.

Skipper was born up here and we used to let her roam outside during the day.  She loved catching mice and voles and just exploring her domain, but last summer I saw a fox lurking in our meadow and since then Skipper has been a house cat.  It breaks our heart to watch her sit at the door the we used to let her out and just look at us with those pitiful eyes.  She's so sad.  I keep telling myself, "She's just a cat and cats don't feel sadness, right?"  It's not working.

Sunday morning I got up early to see some wild turkeys parading through our meadow.  I made some coffee and took it up to the top floor (where I now keep my computer to force me to get more exercise) and low and behold, there was a raccoon asleep on our roof, anchored by our chimney.  When Skipper came up and looked out the window she really freaked out, back arched, tail thickened, and she started a low moaning.  How dare a raccoon invade her territory.  It stayed up on the roof all day, sleeping.  At dusk we saw it get up stretch, climb down onto the deck and saunter off for a night of foraging.

This morning I have a meeting about our roads in the community (they need a lot of expensive work it seems), then around 1:30 we have to leave for home because Angie has a dance class at 7:00.  (I'm betting she decides to skip it...)