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.

Wednesday, December 26 - Back from Paducah

Had a great time in Paducah with Barry's son and in-laws. We ate, and ate, and when we were done eating, we ate again! We're made to feel so welcome there, it's like going home. I even know now where Nancy keeps the paper towels! Presents all around were MOST appreciated, and the good company was wonderful.

It's really weird -- it takes 2 hours to get there and 4 hours to get back. Of course, Paducah is in Central time and we're in Eastern time so that explains it.

BTW, the Patriots game on the 29th WILL be shown on NBC and CBS, not just the NFL network, which is good since we couldn't spring for the $$$$ to buy the NFL network!

No news on the new house purchase here, though we will call Melissa tomorrow to see what's happening. With any luck, we will get the paperwork done so we can close on the property shortly after New Year's, and finish packing and moving. Barry has SO many plans for planting, and we can actually till the ground 'cause it's not frozen! We'll plant and plant and plant! When we moved to Kentucky, one of our major hopes was to find some good gardening land. We don't have it here in Butchertown, but we will in Alum Springs. "Spring" planting around here is late February and early March!

It's in the 50s here, seems like a Maine October day. We understand that "winter" is around the corner though, so expect a bit of snow flurries, and some ice on the roads. That apparently is about it. The grass is still growing, and at Buel and Nancy's, they have a winter-blooming camelia! Yup, flowers blooming in Kentucky in December! Strange place compared to Maine where the major crop this time of year is frozen vegetables, and hothouse tomatoes from Madison!

Sincere thanks for all the gifts and companionship from our family in Paducah -- it is so wonderful the way you have made us a part of your lives. You all have defined "Southern hospitality" for us Yankees!

Wednesday, December 19 - Decisions, decisions

We've made an offer on a 3br 2ba double-wide in Parksville, on an acre of flat, fertile land right beside the Salt River. Actually the river rises about 1/2 mile from the place, then flows all across central Kentucky until flowing into the Ohio downstream from Louisville.

The initial offer was rejected so we countered. Hopefully, they'll accept our counter. If not, we'll up it again -- it'll be difficult but we can do it.

We're now renters here, and can't wait to get out, not just because of the cost, but because this deal turned so totally sour, we need to move and start over. But oh, the cardinals and chickadees at the feeder, and the pileated woodpecker excavating the tree stump -- they're SO beautiful. We'll have birds in Parksville though.

The farm pond froze over completely last night, but melted completely today. We finally came to the realization that the pond is a wonderful feature and we have enjoyed it greatly, but that we've really made pets out of the catfish, bass, and bluegills, so it would be difficult to EAT them! How can one eat a pet?

We drove over to Loretto today to the Maker's Mark distillery, where we bought some Christmas presents -- in another week I can tell who got what...but right now that's for Santa to know. It's weird -- the distillery can't sell any of its bourbon because it's in a "dry" county. You can get Maker's Mark almost anywhere else in the country, but not in the county where it's distilled. Kentucky's prohibition laws are a patchwork of local ordinances with virtually no standardization whatsoever. In one county one can buy booze at Rite-Aid, but 5 miles away one can't even order wine with dinner. A golf course can sell beer, but restaurants must earn 70% of their income from food or they can have their liquor license taken away.

Anyway, we drove to Perryville, then on to Springfield (where Lincoln's parents lived and Jefferson Davis went to school), then overland to Loretto (the Catholic center of Kentucky) through some of the most beautiful land in Kentucky. One farm outside Springfield had green grass, black cows all over, and the sun was shining on it. It looked like a picture postcard taken in June -- except that there weren't any leaves on the trees. It was warm enough for us to take our jackets off most of the day which is also weird because friends and family in Maine are suffering through temps in the teens and 20s and experiencing snow.

In fact, that's what's missing. It's the Christmas season and though we expected it would be warmer than Maine, we didn't expect to miss the snow quite as much. Lights, decorations, everyone saying "Merry Christmas" without SNOW! I guess it's all in what you're used to. What the heck, in Australia, Santa arrives in the middle of Summer on a surfboard and people open presents at the beach!

We'll see tomorrow what our offer on the new property brings. It would be SO nice if we could close before Christmas, or at least have a contract to close.

Stay tuned...

Sunday, December 16 - Packing to move

As I told our realtor yesterday, this "dream house" has turned into a total nightmare. Everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. Right up until the beginning of last week it looked like there was some hope. Not so, so now we live in a house we no longer want to buy, and probably would not take as a gift -- details available to close friends and relatives only.

So after all these months of trying to make it work (we signed the original contract on 30 April - Bless You Melissa for sticking with us), we're moving on. We found three properties which would suit us just fine, and maybe we're rationalizing but all of them are better than here, in many ways. Of course, we'd lose most of our pasture for a lawn, the fish pond for flat garden land, and a log cabin for a conventional looking vinyl-clad house or double-wide. But overall, it's not worth trying to work things out here any more, so we're packing.

On top of all that, the several pipes froze in the Waterville house when the furnace kicked out, and I have a "Merry Christmas" repair bill of $2100.00, with no guarantee that the furnace won't kick out again and do more damage. At least the oil tanks are full. If I put in an insurance claim, the company almost certainly will cancel my insurance. Isn't that fair -- you pay and pay but when you need to get some of it back they drop you like a hot potato! At least the repairs are deductible on my income tax, but in the meantime I still have to pay for them. I've dropped the price from $83,500 to $69,900 and still nothing.

On the bright side -- yes there IS a bright side -- we got a dusting of snow last night (not 8-12 inches), the winds are up (but not 60 mph) and the temps are down to 26 at night (not 0). It's what we in Maine would call a heavy frost. Another good thing though is that the plants we put in the ground can be dug up -- the ground doesn't freeze here -- and be replanted in the new place even in January, with care. The front lawn is still growing when temps get up into the 40s -- and they will be 50+ by Thursday. And the birds are still feeding voraciously! The hawk ON the bird feeder in the picture is probably looking for appetizers!

Just keep reading my blog -- the only thing (I hope) that has changed is that it has become the "View From The Porch" instead, because the places about which we're serious are out of the knobs with its treacherous roads, and actually in the "Bluegrass" farming region and have porches or decks with lawn. If we get our first choice, our mailing address will actually be "Danville, KY" even though we'd live less than a mile from Parksville. And we'd be about 8 miles closer to town (on less curvy, much wider state roads), Burke's Bakery, Centre College, our doctors and dentists, and Wal-Mart (note the ORDER in which I list these notable sites)...

OK, back to uploading cemetery photos, packing, and thinking about friends and family in Maine as an old-fashioned "Nor'easter" blows in.

Friday, December 14 - Winter Weather

OK, so all the warm weather has gone south. It's about 35 here, a cold wind, and it's damp. Ninety-eight of KY's 120 counties are under flood watch or warning now. People are panicking about 1-3" of snow, though some who have obviously never lived in Maine are looking forward to it.

We have a roaring fire in the fireplace, have seriously begun packing, and gotten rid of all kinds of stuff. I took 5 bags of clothing to the Galilean Children's Home, and 5 boxes of books and videotapes to the Casey County Publich Library. And that's AFTER I went through the stuff before we moved here.

This move will be MUCH easier -- we can move bookcases, then books and put them in the bookcases. No need to pack up every single thing we own.

More details on what house we buy, but we WILL be buying something soon....

Thursday, December 13 - A decision, finally

It looks like we're going to be moving. There are just too many issues on this property -- with two more we found out about yesterday -- someday I'll tell the whole story. Anyway, we terminated our offer on this place and will begin paying rent for the time we remain here, which could be as little as 5 weeks. We're looking at another property only a few miles away, but the current owners will need 30 days to leave after we close. We can close in a week or 10 days, so that's about 40 days before we'll have to begin changign our phone, our email, our snail mail, our driver's licenses, everything we already changed!

I will have to see if I can change the blog to "View From The Back Porch" 'cause the view from the front porch of any of the places we're interested in isn't that great, but the view from the back on two is quite nice.

It's been raining here for about 6 days now -- I'd guess about 8 inches of rain total, and now we know what a "flash flood" is. The culvert is washing out, and won't stand another heavy rain. That will be ONE condition on which we will pay rent -- that the owner will maintain the culvert so we can get in and out.

The good news is the temperatures -- mostly in the upper 50 to upper 60 range days, and in the 40's and 50's at night -- though that will change tonight. Highs next Wednesday will be around 28! A winter storm watch is in effect for northern KY -- 1-3 inches! It may even snow here again. We'll see.

Monday, December 10 - A Decision To Be Made

We looked at 4 houses today, all within the same housing development. Two we like and two we didn't. Three more on Wednesday.

When we got home, we got one more surprise that made up our mind. Our driveway is eroding away due to the 4 days of rain we've had here. We can't, nor do we want to, maintain a road we don't own -- and money is an issue as we're both on fixed incomes now -- temps are in the 50s and 60s -- thank goodness it's NOT snow!

Anyway, this is the last straw. We called our agent, Melissa Bibb, of Prudential Guerrant Real Estate -- she's one HELLOVA realtor, and I can't recommend her any higher -- she is THE BEST!!! Told her to get us out of here as soon as possible.

Called Jesse Johnson, of Farm Credit, who has stood behind us 100% protecting our interests, and told him not to do a DNR (do not recusitate) on this place 'cause it ain't gonna get any better.

We're ready to move now. All we need is the boxes and the will, and a place to go.

The blog will continue -- but will probably be called "View from the Bluegrass" instead.

Saturday, December 8 - Packing and Getting Away

There won't be many more entries to "View From The Front Porch." The closing on the house here almost certainly won't happen now, so Barry and I are beginning to pack glassware, going through clothes and books to cull what we don't want or need (or what won't fit any more -- Barry is SUCH a good cook, a third of my shirts won't button now).

We spent yesterday driving around the Danville-Lancaster area looking for houses, and we have found 10 or 11 that would suit our needs and our price range, and psychologically, we are prepared to move. It's going to be easier this time, as we can make many trips instead of one, and we won't be moving far. At least 5 of the houses are within 5 miles of here, with the most distant about 20. All are out of "The Knobs" which is good, because we would always wonder, "what if" as long as we stayed in the Knobs.

Of course, there will be changes in mailing addresses, telephone numbers, utilities (maybe we can keep Intercounty Electric, or maybe we'll find a cheaper provider), new drivers' licenses and registrations, etc. Hopefully we'll keep Windstream for the phone, internet and satellite - they're a great company with which to deal. It will be a pain, but we've done it before and we'll do it again.

Althought this place is - or was - perfect for us, we're rationalizing now, normal reaction, I guess. The back lawn is on a gully which may slide into the valley within the next few years. The fish pond, which we love, may become more work and more expense than we want to deal with. The electric furnace is expensive to run even with the cheap cost of electricity here. The erosion issue, which we can probably correct, will take time, work and money. The house needs staining and waterproofing all around -- whether we do it or someone else does, if something isn't done soon, the carpenter bees will have eaten all the siding.

Anyway, we're getting away for the weekend -- going up to Lexington, staying overnight, just to take a break.

The birds we will miss. We probably won't see some of the species out in the flatland that we see here, and that's sad -- though we have enjoyed the pileated woodpecker and half a dozen cardinals, yellow-bellied-sapsuckers, nuthatches, Carolina chickadees, etc. But, we'll find birds to enjoy wherever we move.

Most of the places we have looked at have enough land to have a good-sized garden, and have what appears to be good soil. Several have garages and/or storage buildings, and enough lawn to need the riding ower. All have heat pumps -- we won't consider one without that source of heat and A/C. Many of the places are stick-built rather than double-wides, and that will make a difference in house insurance costs. Most are nearer a fire department than we are here, which will also cost less in insurance as well. The Brush Creek Voluneer FD is abaout 15 miles away over back roads! And since we won't be buying the shed here, we'll have extra money to put into the purchase price of the new house.

As far as the Waterville house is concerned, there's good news and bad news. I have a showing Sunday, and I told my realtor, Paul Bard, of Century-21 Surette, what my bottom line is -- basically I'll take about ANYTHING for it just to get rid of it. That's the good news.

The bad news -- the furnace quit in nearly 0 temperatures, and one (maybe two) of the baseboards has frozen, requiring a plumber to come out at 9PM to deal with it -- which Paul is handling for me. The plumber was there all day yesterday, and I can't wait to see the bill! Barry's daughter, Karen, drove by the place to check on it, and noticed the light attached to the thermal timer was on. That means the temps were under 45 in the house -- she called in a panic thinking someone was in the house. Thank goodness she did, or the damage would have been MUCH worse! Karen, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Paul Bard -- THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

The oil tanks are full, so I probably won't have to buy oil very much. Plus if the place sells (YES, PLEASE, MAKE IT SELL) I can sell whatever oil is left.

OK, got to get back to going through clothes, and checking out a couple of more houses. I'll keep writing the "View From The Front Porch" as long as I have an internet connection and we're living here. What will I call the blog after we move? Any ideas?