December 20~A Christmas Tree Story 2015~

I do want to share my Christmas Tree story before I get to our fun Christmas.  I drove back home on Sunday, December 20 and it was a beautiful day. Sunny and in the 50's. On my way out to Dover I had noticed a tree farm with a sign advertising Christmas trees at exit 29 off of I-68 in Maryland. I told myself that on the way back if it was nice and I had time that I would stop and cut my own tree for this Christmas.  Part of me said, "just keep driving and buy a tree at Home Depot when you get home" but the other part of me that is becoming a little more spontaneous said, "stop and take a look, how many times will you have this opportunity to cut your own tree from the top of Savage Mountain." So I took the #29 exit hoping that there would be signs to help me find the tree farm.  There were no signs and I was beginning to think I would turn around and get back on the interstate when I spied a small sign at the end of a gravel driveway. It wasn't the large tree farm that I had seen but instead belonged to an older man who had planted trees years ago on his small but very hilly plot of land. He gave me a saw and told me I could go to the bottom of the hill because most people didn't go there and I might find a tree I liked there or I could walk up to the top of the mountain near the tree line where there were several rows of blue spruce.  He also said if I didn't want to cut it I could just hang the saw in the tree I liked and come get him and he would cut it for me.  I started off carefully down the snowy hill and there were some very nice scotch pines and fur trees that would have done nicely and I made a mental note of their approximate location and row. I have never been one to be satisfied so easily and I was curious as to what might be at the top of the mountain. I guess I can thank my Dad for his "let's see what's around this next bend" mentality. So I headed back up and past the old man's house and on up the mountain. I became breathless on several levels, one because from the top I had a spectacular view and also undoubtedly due to my fitness or lack there of, because of the high elevation. (Big Savage Mt. is near the Eastern Continental Divide and stands at 2,982 feet above sea level).  I followed the 3 rows of blue spruce trees along the tree line until I was sure I had found the perfect tree, knowing that I had better start cutting while I still had enough oxygen to finish the job.  As I was nearly through the trunk I could hear the old man's ATV coming up the mountain and with a huge sigh of relief I gladly helped load my tree onto the back and accepted his offer to ride back down. As we rode down the hill he told me that he had grown up on a farm near here and had spent his entire life in the shadows of the Big Savage Mountain.  He had the sweetest little dog that followed him everywhere and was a little put out that he had to ride in the back as I apparently took his seat up front. At my car we stuffed the tree inside thinking that it would be less of a worry than trying to secure it to the top of my car. A task that would have been easier if I didn't already have my car stuffed with Christmas presents that Trish had sent out with me. Long story short, we got the tree in, I paid the wonderful gentleman his $20 dollars for a 7 foot blue spruce and came away with not only a beautiful tree but a great story as well.  As I was leaving another couple, I'm pretty sure they were local, pulled in and the guy said to the older man, "the tree you sold me last year died, so I guess I need to get another!" I drove out the long gravel driveway with a giant smile on my face and the ultimate air freshener inside my car.

Saturday, December 19-Chad's Birthday

Last night was the Foulk Stable Christmas Party and shall we say......, it was a lively party. Glad I was here to help out with some of the preparations and see the employees, drivers and horse owners that are such a big part of Foulk Stables and Trish and Chad's livelihood. Some very colorful personalities and all wonderful people. Horse people are quite interesting and very passionate about what they do.
Today as we were getting ready to go out for lunch, we heard the sirens in the neighborhood that could mean only one thing, Santa was making his rounds through the Dover neighborhoods.

After lunch Trish had signed us up to participate in a painting class at the Artsy Fartsy Art Studio. We all painted a wonderful Frosty Snowman.

And if we still hadn't done enough, we went to the movies to see the chipmunks, Road Chip. We finished our day with a visit to see Santa and an ice cream cone. The perfect ending to a pretty spectacular day. Trish and Chad enjoyed a night out while we were at the movie.

Thursday, December 17-Christmas Concert

Having a great time here in Dover even though the weather is getting cooler and today it rained most of the day. I especially enjoy walking to the bus stop to get Luke and Lily after school. Yesterday I made it out here in time to go to Lily's gymnastics and Luke's parkour. It is fun to see how they have improved each time I visit.

Tonight the kids had their school Christmas concert at the Modern Maturity Center in Dover. All the students K-8 sang or played their instruments to entertain their parents and friends. I got some good pics of Lily because she was in the front row but Luke was hidden from view behind a cute little girl during most of his performance. Still I am so happy I was able to come out to see it live!

Monday, December 14

It came to my attention today that perhaps I am not living up to the expectations of a few of my followers.  It seems that they need more posts showing the exciting life of a retired school teacher.  I could write about my Friday adventure that included putting up my outside Christmas lights or how I solved the case of my smelly bathroom.  The smelly bathroom seems much more interesting and could actually prove to be of some value if indeed you were to have a sewer gas problem in your own bathroom.  I love my son in law and if I have learned one thing from him it would be this, if you need to find an answer you need go no farther than your IPhone.  Google has an answer for everything.  Andy had suggested that perhaps the vent could be stopped up, something I would never have thought of, so I typed in clogged toilet vent and to my amazement up popped a plethora of possibilities for solving such a problem.  After reading my choices, I chose the most common strategy.  It involved climbing on the roof armed with a garden hose.  I also took a plumbers snake as a backup.  Andy was in charge of turning on the water. In theory the weight of the water would flush out any blockage and if that didn't work the snake would loosen the clogs and you could try the water again. The most difficult part was getting the hose into the vent.  The top of the vent was 4" in diameter but about 2 feet down in became a 1 1/2' diameter pipe and my hose seemed to have a natural curl preventing it from hitting the much smaller hole. After another trip down the ladder to get a flashlight, which proved pretty useless, and a yard stick, I was ready to give it another try.  I found it impossible to hold the hose, the yardstick and the flashlight all at once so I abandoned the flashlight and just used the yardstick to try and guide the hose into the smaller hole.  After a minute or so I was successful and we turned the water on and waited for the miracle of unclogging to happen.  There was no magic "whoosh" as described but I was able to get the snake down the entire 15 feet as opposed to the 4 feet it had gone before the garden hose flush.  Mission accomplished and so far we no longer have a smelly bathroom.  I must say that there is proud feeling of accomplishment when we can solve a problem and save a few dollars in the process. That good feeling didn't last too long though because after I put everything away in the barn, the sliding door got hung up and in the process of closing (kicking) it, I slipped and fell on my bumper, as Lily calls it, and hit my elbow. Fixing the d@*n door is next on our to do list.  So now you are probably glad that I don't post my day to day activities, they aren't really that exciting, I am off to Delaware for Luke and Lily's music program on Thursday so look for a more traditional post towards the end of the week.

These are some of  the pics from Sara and Matt's family photo shoot.  They came out super cute!

Monday, November 30-The American Girl Cafe

Evie was 4 years old yesterday. Hard to believe that 4 years ago I was spending the month of December in Honolulu. (Thank you Sara and Matt for that memorable experience) On Monday, Sara and I took her to the American Girl Store at the Easton Mall and had a birthday celebration for Evie and her doll Kanani. We had a great lunch complete with a beautiful birthday cake and then of course we had to shop.  A.J. was quite the trooper and slept through the entire lunch and most of the shopping. What a wonderful way to top off our Thanksgiving weekend.

Evelyn Leah Neufarth, December 2, 2011

Matt returning home after his deployment 2012

That was then, this is now.

Evie with her new Maryellen doll.

Happy Birthday, Evie!!

Last Photos of our NYC Trip

Finally got my desktop back in working order and thought I would take a few minutes to finish the photos from our NYC trip.  I believe I left off on Tuesday which was a great day, weather was fantastic and we crammed so much into one day that we barely could open the door to our hotel room before we crashed into bed.
Wednesday morning we were up fairly early to try and get out of the city and on our way home.  Sharon was a wiz driving the busy narrow streets of the city and before we knew it we were in Jersey. Our plan was to have time to stop at the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville, Pa.  After exiting, it was about a 40 minute drive to the Memorial but if you are ever near the area you should definitely make it a priority stop.  It is so well done and as I talked with the rangers they said that it has been very busy with a high attendance rate considering how far out in the country it is located. Once again, as with our entire trip, the weather was perfect for early November.  I will let the photos speak for themselves. 40 passengers on flight #93 lost their lives on 9/11 but they were certainly not victims, they were instead Heros on an Uncommon Field.  There have been several books written about this flight and I hope to read them.  One is titled, An Uncommon Field by Richard Snodgrass.

The park entrance

This granite walkway to the visitors center is the flight path of the plane before it crashed

The Memorial is all about the passengers and other than this diagram showing the seats where the terrorist were seated, the terrorists were not mentioned in any of the exhibits.

There were news broadcasts, several phone messages from passengers to their family and many personal items on display.  All very moving and a testament to their courage

The Memorial is designed to make your eye follow the flight of the plane to it's final resting place.

Sharon and I made the 1/4 mile walk down to the crash site where the names of the passengers are engraved on a marble wall that is lit at night by small solar lights placed in front of each name.

In the distance, near the tree line is the crash site. It is marked with a large boulder

The crash site

The Memorial Wall and you can see the Visitors Center in the upper right .