Tom and Patti Saunders
Dog's Breath Acres 2007 Annual Report
2007 Annual Report
The years seem to be going by with ever greater speed and efficiency. Yet we inhabitants of Dog's Breath Acres are moving ever slower and haltingly. Well, maybe not quite as bad as that sounds. Patti and I did manage a few wonderful trips, the grandkids keep us on our (arthritic) toes, and the house has managed to survive snowstorms and lightning strikes and windstorms. And we have reason for optimism, since Dog's Breath Acres stands at 400 feet above sea level, well above the upcoming global warming high water mark.
In January we lost power at Dog's Breath Acres for about a day when a tree was blown onto the telephone pole next to the driveway, starting a small fire in the top of the tree. The big thrill was when the circuit breaker on the pole tripped with a tremendous boom and flash (which stopped the fire). Another thrill occurred during a thunderstorm here in June. There was a great flash, without a whole lot of noise, just some crackling and hissing, and Patti saw sparks outside on a roof beam. Apparently a lightning bolt hit the house, or very nearby. We couldn't find any signs of the strike, but our home wireless network was fried, along with a radio.
Our March trip was to Canyonlands National Park, Escalante National Monument, and Zion National Park. Utah still gets my vote as the most spectacular (scenery-wise) state, and we still have much to explore there. (On a side note, our annual trip this year will have to be delayed until at least late spring. I'm going in for shoulder surgery to repair torn rotator cuff ligaments (a quarter century of soccer goalkeeping comes back to haunt me) and I'll be immobilized for most of the winter.)
I've kept busy building and repairing things around the house. The upstairs office/media room has been completely transformed with homemade desks, shelves, cabinets, etc., plus a big new flat panel television. Even Patti likes the TV; we spent an inordinate amount of time ensconced in lazy boys watching DVDs from Netflix (one of the great inventions of modern times). We also had the large fogging-over windows in the front of the house replaced, for a brand new view of the front yard. Unfortunately, the new clearness of the windows was also much more attractive to birds, which started hitting the glass with disturbing frequency. We've saved them by stretching nearly invisible netting about a foot in front of the windows; they just bounce off now, and the late summer spiders love the ready built web.
Patti has been having great fun visiting gardens, shopping, and doing projects with her friends, the "Garden Girls". There are risks, of course; sometimes when you stop to shop at a local garden sculpture place (the sign said "80% off"), late on a Sunday afternoon, and the proprietor doesn't notice your car, leaves for the day, and locks the gate, you'll have to be rescued by a nearby spouse, who has all the tools required to disassemble the gate. Patti's also continuing her work with the League of Women Voters, writing her blog every day (google "Some Snohomish Women"), and is finishing up another quilt, this time for Sienna (she specializes in turtle patterns).
Allison and Mike and Kiara and Sienna continue to do well at their home in nearby Machias. On many Tuesdays and Thursdays, Patti and I (much much more Patti than I) look after the grandkids here at Dog's Breath Acres. Ever the engineer, I've been trying to influence their intellectual growth by exposing them to some of the finer things in life, such as my train set and Legos, which they enjoy very much. Noma (that's Patti) emphasizes lesser things, such as reading and writing. Kiara has started swimming lessons, and is learning teamwork playing soccer.
Scott and Joelene and Andrew came for a visit in July, the first time all the new cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents have gotten together. Scott has a year and a half to go on his cardiology fellowship in Hartford, Joelene is continuing her OB/GYN'ing, and Andrew is proving a small and welcome bundle.
We flew down to New Orleans in September for quick trip to Patti's brother's wedding. It was great seeing siblings Andra and Jennifer and Lynn and (newly-acquired) Peggy, plus I accidentally stumbled on a nearby National Wildlife Refuge specializing in red-cockaded woodpeckers, a real treat. (I added three other birds to my ABA list this year: western screech-owl, brown-head nuthatch, and whooper swan, plus a few lifers in Europe.) Oh... the wedding was fun too.
In early October Patti and I, ignoring the free-falling dollar, spent nearly three weeks in Switzerland, Italy, and France.
Finally, Patti and I headed down to Oregon once again for Thanksgiving with Kate and Ger and Carol and Ken. Unfortunately, while we were there, Kate stumbled in the driveway and broke her ankle, the opposite from the one she broke in New Hampshire a couple of summers ago. We've determined that there has been one common denominator among her broken ankles and various other broken bones in the family: I've been lurking nearby.