First Stop...Niagara Falls, Canada

We left Monday for a business trip to Cleveland. It's not my business trip, so I am having a fun, relaxing time visiting sites around the area. Cleveland is a long, 12 hour drive from Vermont, so to break it up a bit, we decided to detour over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, since we have never been there. The "big city" is pretty overwhelming when you haven't been accustomed to it in a long while. The traffic crossing the border was heavy, and the commercialism of Niagara Falls is ridiculous. But the site of the falls is beautiful, and the weather both the afternoon we got there, and the following morning was perfect. We stayed in a Hilton Hotel so we could have a really nice view of the falls from our room, plus Champlain College would be paying part of the bill, so it was worth the splurge. Here are a few photos:

 Here I am looking over the American Falls.

 This is the Canadian Falls, which is just up from the American Falls.

 Closer view of the American Falls from our room.

 The sun rising over the American Falls. View from our room.

 It was a great stop, and I'm really glad I was able to visit it, but it's probably not something I would go back and do again. But I guess, for just about any major tourist attraction, you have to put up with the crowds and traps that generate the money needed to keep the area functioning. 

A Little Lonely...A Little Lost

Kuma and Mishka

10 February 2011

So, although Kuma is gone, we still have our little Mishka. Mishka is 2 years older than Kuma was, and she will be 10 in December. She often limps on her back right leg, but other than that, she seems pretty healthy. She has always been a sweet, lovable dog who yearns for all the attention you could possibly give her. She is calm and fairly quiet. She and Kuma had some great playing times when they were younger. They would do tug-of-war with pull toys, dragging each other back and forth until one finally tired out and gave up. They would roll around out on our porch when it was all screened in, stretching the screens to the max. One day they were both out there, and after awhile it seemed rather quiet. I let Mishka in, then looked around the corner for Kuma. No Kuma. But a large tear was visible in the screen at the far end of the porch. Had Mishka followed her brother out the hole? No, she was a good doggie. Had she barked to let me know he was running wild? Nope, not a peep. In fact, I suspect she was rather glad to see him go, and was happy with the peace and calm for awhile. They shared toys and treats and often finished each others food when no one was looking. They sometimes slept close to each other, but other times went their own way too. But if we went for a ride in the car, they were always together in the back seat.

Now, there's only Mishka, and she still seems rather confused. She won't lay in her normal spot in the living room. She takes awhile to eat in the morning. like she's waiting for us to put Kuma's food down too. At night, when I take her out before bedtime, she lags back because Kuma always took forever to get up. But the hardest is when we have to leave the house. She comes downstairs and goes to the door of the garage like she doesn't want to be left alone in the house. She sits there looking at me as if to say, "Please don't leave me by myself. It's too lonely, I don't know what to do." We have a trip coming up, and we have debated what to do with her. We had planned to take both of them to the kennel where we always leave them and where we also take them to be groomed. We do have a neighbor who would come over to check on Mishka if we wanted to leave her at the house, but we think it will be best to take her to the kennel. She will be with other dogs and people nearly all the time because it's also a doggie daycare, and we are thinking that may be best. We don't want her to feel completely abandoned in the house. It will be hard on her and on us, and I know we will be so glad to see her when we get back.

Mishka

10 August 2014

"Bear" in Japanese

Kuma

There are some moments in life that will forever remain in our thoughts. 

This is a picture of Kuma. A big, beautiful Samoyed; goofy, funny, strong, kind, clumsy, messy, full of mischief, a chewer of all things, lovable, determined, playful, gentle. He joined our family in January of 2007, while his brother went to my daughter's house in Maryland. As a puppy, I would take him to work with me at the small gift store I worked at not far from here. He would sleep in a little pop-up kennel, and I would take him out for short walks in the nearby park. People would hear him squeaking his little toys and be surprised to see him put his paws on the counter to greet them. Sometimes we would sit on the bench in front of the store and watch the people go by. But then I changed jobs, and no longer took him to work with me. Probably a good thing because he was way too big by then. 

Kuma was trouble. He pulled terribly while he walked you. He chewed up toys, and bones and chair legs and corners of walls. He barked loud. He never laid still to be brushed. He ate driveway stone and grass. He had to be on a leash always, and took forever to come home if he ever did get away. You could walk him up and down the driveway trying to get him to go pee, and somehow I swear he held it just to be stubborn and get an extra 5 minutes outside. 

But Kuma was fun. He loved to come up and put his big head in your lap and wait for you to rub his nose. He would roll over so you could scratch behind his ears and on his back. He played catch with his ball and loved playing fetch. He was overjoyed with every first snow. He would dive head first into the fresh snowbanks and eat as much of it as he possibly could. It took forever to walk him because he had to sample each new snow pile. He never bit or nipped, or got tired of a child being around him. He tenderly took treats from their tiny hands and never once got a finger by mistake. He loved his Sunday pancakes, and rides in the car. He was a good dog, and he is terribly missed.

Last Thursday we took him to the vet and they found 7 tumors had invaded his body. He hadn't really been eating at all for nearly 2 weeks. Only the oatmeal and chicken I would cook for him in the morning. Not enough to keep him going. There was nothing much they could do for him, and he wouldn't get better. He was so sick. And maybe in pain, but we wouldn't know. But he was weak, and getting weaker by the day. We sat by his side, and said goodbye and rubbed his ears and nose. He is everywhere I turn right now, and it will take some time to get used to his not being around. But he will always be loved. Run free Kuma.

It's the Birthday Fairy Again!

It is the eve of yet another of those birthday things! Funny how they come and go each year. Many thoughts are going thru my mind. I am working tomorrow, like a normal, regular Monday. I could have taken off if I really wanted to, but we didn't have anything special we were going to do, so it didn't make a lot of sense to take off to sit around the house for the day. Besides, I really wanted to be off on Friday so I could do what I need to get done before my daughter and her boyfriend come up here from Texas. And really, do I need to take a vacation day on my birthday? I think not. So I will work. But we will go to dinner in Burlington after I finish, and that will be nice. I would have loved for my sister and her husband to join us, but their schedules don't work out for a good dinner time. So instead they will come over here tonight to have dinner with us. We picked up some salmon this morning that is already marinated, and we will roast some asparagus, so it will be a very easy dinner. I did make some rolls:

I made these awhile ago, and they turned out yummy good, so I thought they would go well tonight. And for dessert, I ordered this cake from a very well known bakery in Burlington:

It is a Creme Brûlée cake! It is a yellow cake filled with rich vanilla custard and topped with a crunchy melted sugar topping. Doesn't it look wonderful? I can hardly wait to eat it! It'll be fun. Today has been a busy day; breakfast this morning with my sister and her husband, like normal. Came home and did 4 loads of laundry and cleaned the bathrooms and made the rolls and tended the fire in the fireplace. I almost didn't do a fire because it really is mild out. So mild that there is a hint of spring in the air. And a hint of sugar season in the air. It got up to about 43° which feels wonderful. But the heater was still coming on in the house, and it is nice to have a fire going if you are having guests over for dinner. And speaking of sugar season-we haven't tapped the trees yet, or we would surely be out collecting sap today. I'm sure it would have run. But it has just been such a frigid, cold winter, it didn't make sense to tap yet. They will do that next weekend. I only hope that it warms up a bit when my daughter comes because she is coming for sugar season and it will be a shame if nothing is flowing. But that is the way the sap drips! It is forecasted to be -2° when they get here Saturday night! They will be quite chilly considering it is 70° in Dallas today.
This morning 2 of my daughters ran a half marathon in Disneyworld. It was to commemorate one of their 30th birthday which was 2 weeks ago. I am so glad they had a lot of fun and ran it together. It sounds like they had a great time. It would have been really nice to be there, but I try to not think too much about it. I know it wouldn't have worked out for many, many reasons, but still... In the end, I'm just really glad it worked out for them.
My sister, who lived with us for several months bought a house ten days ago. I am so happy for them. It is a beautiful home and I know the,y will do a fantastic job with it. I can hardly wait to see the seasons evolve there, the setting is so pretty. I did go over for about 5 hours on my day off last Friday and helped unpack maybe 6 boxes. I feel like I should have helped so much more. I'm sure they have been overwhelmed, but it sounds like they have made some progress. I did have them eat over here on Wednesday night and then again tonight. I know its a long process, but I hope they will be really happy there. They are 8.5 miles from our house, and it takes about 15 minutes to get there. We won't see each other every day, but I know we'll see each other often. It is so nice having them close.
That's it. I think that catches up on the basics of life here in Northern Vermont. Winter is winding down, and even if the Polar Vortex does roar his angry head this way again, we know it won't be for a terribly long time. The new season brings lots to look forward to. Life is keen and cozy.

A New Year...Again! Welcome 2014

Once again it has been a long time since I have found the time to sit down and write a bit in this blog. Time has passed quickly since the week of Thanksgiving. It seems like I was doing a lot between then and now, getting ready for the holidays, baking cookies (of which we still have some left!) buying and wrapping gifts, and getting ready for the houseful of family we had that week. We had all but 1 child here, and all the grandchildren:

I need to upload the photos from my camera, but this one will do for now. It was a great Christmas, busy and active and a bit crazy, but oh, so much fun! We had an ice storm right in the middle of it all, and had to have 2 80 foot pine trees taken out on Christmas Eve so they didn't fall on the house. Here are some trees by the house after the ice storm:

 And the day after Christmas we got about 5 inches of snow which prevented everyone from venturing down to Burlington to walk around. But all in all it was a pretty special holiday. We went to the neighbor's for New Year's Eve, even though we didn't stay until midnight. And I've worked and turned the store around after the holidays, and have now settled into the post busy period into the calm and quiet and rather challenging dead time of year. 

On the home front,  I do see my sister at least once a week or so. They have begun looking at houses and hope to find the perfect one for them in the next few weeks. It is exciting for them, and I am anxious to see where it takes them. This morning they picked me up for breakfast (my dear husband is sick with a terrible cold) and after we ate we went to look at two of the houses they looked at yesterday. We just looked from the road. Both look nice, but I think I see them in one over the other. Both are close, about a 10 minute drive. I really hope we will continue to see each other often. 

Like I said, I have a sickie in the house. I have been fighting a lousy cough for about 2 weeks, and it finally seems to be winding down. I don't have coughing spells during the day anymore, and just a few coughs at night. Just the same, I have been sleeping in the basement for the last few nights for a few reasons: 1. I need to cough when I need to cough, and I found sleeping in my bed, I would wake up and try not to cough so I didn't wake up the man next to me, and I would end up having a horrible coughing spell. So I would leave the room and go downstairs so I could cough my head off, and sometimes that was at 1am and sometimes it was at 3:30am. Either way, it was hard to get back to sleep afterwards, so I found if I just slept downstairs I could cough all I needed and roll over and go back to sleep without any worry. 2. He is pretty sick and when I need to go to work I get up about 6:15am, and of course, this wakes him up. I am tiptoeing around trying to be quiet, while I know he is trying to sleep. So, by being downstairs I can cough when I want, get up when I need to, shower and dress in the light, and be on my way just as he is crawling out of bed. Besides, he is pretty sick, and I don't really want what he has-I'm still trying to get over what I have! I think another night or two, and I'll be back upstairs.

It's been an interesting start to the new year. The winter has been so unusual. Lots of ice, freezing temperatures of -13° with -30° wind chill, and lots of ice. Our driveway was such a solid sheet of ice I barely made it up in the morning, then I slid all over the place. We finally hired someone to put down a layer of salt and sand, and that helped tremendously. We haven't had too much snow, and yesterday it was 50° with rain. Who knows what the next few months will bring! But it is new, and that is good...

A Place of our Own

I have not posted in FOREVER! But I am sitting here tonight and finally felt like writing for a bit. August was a long time ago. A really long time ago, it seems. August is when my sister came to live with us. This morning she and her husband moved out. Not too far away, just down to the end of the street. They will be house sitting at our neighbors' for the next 3 and a half months while they are in California. And while they try to find a house to buy. I have had a really great time while they were here. It was nice to come home from work on days when she was off to find dinner nearly ready, and dessert baked and waiting on the counter. It was fun to sit around at the table after dinner chatting about our customers, how busy we had/had not been at work. It was wonderful to share doing the dishes after we ate, and to shop together for groceries once in awhile. We still can't believe that my brother-in-law moved in nearly 6 months ago, and my sister almost 4 months ago. The time went quickly, but then our work schedules were such that we rarely had the same days off. In fact, we think that yesterday may have been one of the only days that all four of us were all off. We went to breakfast at our old favorite, My T Fine, because our favorite waitress was back working for the day. We came home to do some laundry and they packed up their things in anticipation of the move. Then my sister and I made homemade pasta with her pasta machine, meatballs, and bread. We had a roaring fire going because it was brutally cold and windy outside. We wrapped gifts and knitted and chatted. We all ate dinner together by the fire with a nice bottle of wine to mark the end of this chapter, and to celebrate the fact that we were all still talking at the end of it all. I miss my sister 😢. But guess what? They are going to come here for Thanksgiving Dinner!!! And next Tuesday she has invited me to dinner over at their new house! I think, maybe, we will still manage to see each other pretty often. And now, maybe I will have more time to do things alone, like writing posts and reading books.

Dog Days of Summer

Yes, this is a Dog Day kind of afternoon! Normally we think of the Dog Days of Summer as those hot, sticky, muggy August afternoons when it feels like summer will never end, and you are trying to enjoy every last second of the lazy mood before the new season kicks in. Most vacations have come and gone, visitors have packed their baggage and returned home, and the new school season in on your mind, but only the TV commercials seem to accept the fact that its just around the corner. I can remember shopping for new school clothes in August with my mom when I was young. Of course we started out the new year in our summer clothes, so we were looking for fall and winter items that she would put on layaway until the weather turned colder. There must not have been air conditioning in the stores way back then, because I know I would try on winter coats and just agree to the first one so I didn't have to roast trying on any more. 

Today, though, it is a fabulous day. Sunny, mild 70's, and a light breeze. Going to breakfast this morning we saw patches of leaves beginning to change into their fall colors. The mornings are cool and the days mild, but we know what is on its way. I am sitting out on the patio enjoying the gorgeous view out the windows, watching the yellow finches at the bird feeder. It is so nice out here. This is my favorite place in the house at this time of the year.

And here is a picture of the cows being moved across the driveway this morning to graze in the other meadow. They love moving to a new field. 

There are only 11 cows out there, but it looks like lots more. One is a bull who is doing his best to make sure that the heifers out there produce new babies in the spring. We know we have a glorious autumn coming, and then the long, cold winter, but all is good up here in the north!