Monday, 21 Jan 2008 - Supplemental

Just a FEW of the birds we've seen here in Kentucky

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker












Pileated Woodpecker











Northern Cardinal










Goldfinches








BlueJay










Nuthatch

Monday, 21 Jan 2008 - FINALLY!

We've closed on a new house.

I hadn't wanted to write anything for fear of jinxing the sale, in fact I emailed a friend just HINTING that we were closing on Friday, and when we got into the closing, the payoff figure (the amount of her loan that would be paid off by our purchase) was wrong! Our lawyer leaned over to Barry and said, "So close..."

Well, the gal got on the phone and managed to settle the matter on the spot, so we actually did most of the paperwork on Friday Jan 18, signing the final paperwork on Saturday the 19th.

Lots of changes coming down the 'pike now. Phone, email, address...some of which we know.

Our physical address (and for UPS delivery) will be 5187 Alum Springs Rd, Danville KY 40422. Our mailing address will be a post office box in Parksville (only 1.5 miles down the road) and I won't have to go through each of my 1000 entries in my eBay store one-by-one to change the ZIP code. That alone will save me days of work.

Those who know me, know that genealogy is an obsession -- well, the Alum Springs property has a cemetery just over our property line. I've already traced the families of several of the people buried there including a Revolutionary War veteran who served with Gen. George Rogers Clark, the founder of Paducah, where Rick lives! Can't wait until I can get the photos up on "www.findagrave.com" to share with relatives and descendants.

In addition, when Barry and I drove up to Frankfort the other day, I stopped in at the department of teacher certification. The University of Southern Maine can't find the documentation that actually SAYS I took the courses needed to become a certified teacher in Maine in 1968, so I wanted to find out how to pull an end-run. Well, the gal there said I'd need a letter from USM saying that they could not find the record. She stepped out back to photocopy all my paperwork, and the director of certification happened to be in. HE said, since I've been teaching for 39 years and have 3 college degrees, just to go ahead and collect the fee for certification and give me the certificate! I'll be fully certified to teach social studies in grades 5-12 state-wide. That should help when I decide I want to begin substitute teaching. Plus with the move, I'm 8 miles closer to Boyle County and Danville schools, and NOT out in the knobs with these treacherous roads!

Oh, we have a "winter weather advisory" tonight for an inch of snow. Friends in Maine are rolling on the floor laughing now, I'm sure. But down here with narrow curvy roads in the hills I can definitely see how an inch of snow can be treacherous if not fatal! Some roads in the knobs don't get much sun at all, so if the snow melts during the day and freezes at night, OOPS! Now I realize that even the back roads in Maine MUST be wider than they are here just to have a place to put the snow!

BIRDS: Oh, my, we've seen as many as 17 Cardinals at one time. For a Mainer, who has only seen 4-5 in his whole life, what a treat! We're keeping a list of the birds we've seen, and the folks who live in the Alum Springs house we've just bought have been feeding them over there, too. This morning I took a picture (I've GOT to get those off the camera and posted here) of about a dozen male goldfinches on the table we're using as a feeder. In the winter, they are a grayish-green, not becoming yellow until spring. Also the dark-eyed juncos WINTER in Kentucky before migrating north to Canada. No wonder we've seen dozens of them!

Once I get more pictures of the Alum Springs property I'll post those AND some bird photos.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

OK, so I haven't written for awhile. Frankly, we've settled into a waiting game here until we can sign for the new house we're buying. It should be within the week. Jesse at Farm Credit called today -- the house won't qualify for a 30 year mortgage because it's too old, but the good news is that we'll get it for 20 years at 1% less in interest than we were paying.

In the meantime, we're paying rent here -- it irks us to no end, because we keep thinking of all the things we COULD have done in a different place. Our only pleasure these days is feeding the birds -- and eating! Speaking of which, I did buy a new digital camera with a 10X optical zoom so we can take better pictures of the birds. One day we must have had 10 cardinals at the feeder! The goldfinches have returned as well, so spring is on its way.

It's 67 degrees as I write this -- remember it's January 8 for goodness sake -- but even back in Maine we understand it's 60 (thanks for the weather report, Shirley).

Today we took a ride to find the old "Minor's Store" on Minor's Branch Road in the extreme southwest part of Boyle County or the extreme northwest part of Casey County -- not sure which. Well, after a ride over a road that made Blackguard Road in Waterford look like I-95, we finally made it. It's a small little, back road store, and we met the owner, her fiance (whom we had previously met at Lowe's in Danville where he works), and a friend of hers, as well as the local letter carrier from Gravel Switch, and we probably just talked with them for over an hour. We've got to get over there again for the super breakfast on Saturday morning! The friend I mentioned, lives on Alum Springs Road in Boyle County, and knows exactly where we're buying. Folks like these are really nice and friendly, like Maine folks, when they're accepted for who and what they are, not looked down upon by "out-of-staters"! We came here because we loved it, not because we wanted to change it into a southern version of Maine, "ayuh-you-all"! You know how some "flatlanders" love Maine then move here to change it? Well, people here feel the same way about "outsiders." But NO one here sells Moxie or Whoopie Pies!

OK, if you want to see the house we're buying, "google" Lincoln Realty and Auction in Stanford, KY, and look for 5187 Alum Springs Road.

For now, until we get new emails, I'm telling everyone to use "mdenis46@gmail.com" because I can check that email anywhere. We will have a new phone number, new cell phone number, new email, new mailing address, and new physical address. And to think that we had already changed EVERYTHING over to THIS address! It looks like we're transients or illegal immigrants, having three different addresses in 6 months!

More later, as we're supposed to close within a week now.