jcbemis and fla_sunshine are visiting right now. I'm thoroughly enjoying their company and tonight, just before going up to bed (I thought!), I added the header to a new page in the Friends of Toad Woods Register so they can both sign the book before heading to Worcester for ConCertino on Friday.

I left the book open on the table and started to head upstairs. Somewhere in there, I realized, wow, I'd just picked up another state. They're my first visitors from Florida since I moved here just over five years ago.

Soon I was tallying the rest. So much for going to bed right then.

In the last five years and one month, I've had visitors from 12 U.S. states (AL, CA, FL, IL, MA, MI, MN, NH, NY, PA, VA, WA) and two foreign countries (Poland and Canada). Given there are only two countries, I wouldn't have predicted that Poland would be one of them.) The repeat and multiple visitors from those states and countries is pretty impressive, too, with the numbers being eight and nine, respectively. ( More stats'n'natter )

If memory serves, during those same five years, I've stayed overnight in 19 different homes of friends and family in nine states (CO, IL, IN, MA, MI, MN, NY, PA, VA) and two Canadian provinces (ON and MB). From memory, again, I've made repeat visits to nearly half of those, and a similar number have been extended visits (1-5 weeks, and if we total the number of nights I've stayed in debgeisler and benveniste's home, they'll either start charging me rent or I'll have the frequent stay equivalent of a Premier Exec for life on United.) So much for thinking I'm not traveling much these days.

I of course now want to look through the Friends of Toad Hall list that Karen Johnson compiled for me as part of the house cooling festivities and see how many more states and countries my "visitors from" map collects from that. There's England, Northern Ireland, Russia, Romania, and Australia for sure, and at least one more Canadian province, I think. I've had visitors from a lot more countries than I've been to.

But I'm on my way to bed, remember? I do. The rest of the map will wait for another time.

...for a full 9 hours now. It hasn't stopped raining since I got here. This is not as welcoming as I would have hoped. Mostly, it's just plain wet.

Outdoors only, thank ghu.

The 85-mile trip home took most of 5.5 hours today. I built in several breaks, stopping for a half-hour or more pretty much every half-hour of driving. First at the NESFA Clubhouse, then at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, then a welcome visit with nesfan, and finally at the Charleton rest area, just for good measure.

The frequent stops proved to be a good strategy. When I arrived home, I had enough energy to move sixteen packed bags plus two bags of groceries from the car to the first floor of the Zeppelin Hangar. Sorry, fringefaan; it wasn't 3x3, but rather 4x4. (The ants go marching....)

The house is standing, but the window box was somehow knocked mostly to the ground while I was gone and my beloved not-a-gargoyle is now a scattered mass of shards. I suspect a deer came in close to investigate the romaine lettuce growing in the window box, then had the bejeesus scared out of it when it knocked the window box loose from its rack. I supposed it could have been some other animal larger than a squirrel and smaller than a deer, but deer seem the most likely suspects.

I've just started reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books. Perhaps magic or wizardry are responsible, instead.

It sure was a good gargoyle. I'll miss him.

Still, it's good to be home.

I took the bag of dirty laundry downstairs and started the dehumidifier -- the basement really needs it. I suppose I should carry a bag upstairs and make sure everything is okay there, too. There's only one problem. If I do, I may well just fall into bed and sleep the sleep of the healing.

It's May 30th.

I just took the snow brush out of my car until next winter.


Additional information that may or may not be pertinent and/or useful:

-- Three weeks ago today, I removed the coal shovel that's so useful when one needs to dig one's car out of a snowbank, especially the snowbanks along the edge of one's driveway that a certain driver has been known to get stuck in...repeatedly...when backing down for a second or third attempt at getting up the curved slope.

-- There are at least three ice scrapers still in the car. They don't take up any space needed for other things and live there year round. Why three? It makes it much more likely that one will be found when it's needed.

-- I've lived in Massachusetts for five years and two weeks.

-- It is entirely possible that those 25 years in Minnesota are still in my bloodstream.

1) The knee is better, though still bears close watching and considerable rest. Many thanks to all for the quick healing messages. I was pleased to discover that my health provider has a truly useful set of web pages for evaluating what's okay to self-treat (along with how and for how long) and when one should seek professional treatment. It was broken out symptom by symptom -- what kind of pain, how much swelling, and so on. The provider web pages also included an excellent overview of the many different main things that can go wrong with knees, and useful self-care information. I'm impressed, and pleased. Their online resources left me confident about my decision to give the knee a few days to get better with a little bit of help from me rather than going in for evaluation and a probable X-ray yesterday or today.

2) Remember last summer, when my home heating fuel budget went up by 150% to cover the expected costs of the heating season we're now in? A couple of months ago, I asked when they were going to lower budget payments considering how much the price per gallon had dropped since the budget numbers were set. They lowered my payment so it was closer to a 70% increase over last year.

That was good, but today's mail was even better. There, on the bottom of my monthly budget summary statement, was the welcome surprise, in all capital letters, which I will not duplicate here, and bold face, which I will: "You have a high credit balance on this account. We feel you should stop making payments for now."

Whoohoo!

Yes, I may well already have already paid for the rest of the oil I'll use this year. I thought I was still going to come out somewhat ahead of the game, but it never occurred to me that I might be able to stop making payments all together.

A few months worth of oil payments will go along way toward paying for gutter repairs. (If the money actually existed, that is. I'm working on that part.)

...the rest of the week doesn't get any worse.

While running an afternoon's worth of errands, I slipped on ice in the Rite-Aid parking lot in Palmer. Actually, I wasn't running, I was shuffling along really quite slowly and carefully, 'cause, y'know, it's icy out there.

Bam. Point of impact: my left knee, which seems to be my default point of impact whenever I fall. In recent years, that's been once or twice a winter, though I may have gone through one of them without falling at all. Five years ago, I spent the whole winter falling, something like five or six times, and once with the sort of pain that today's fall seems to have brought on. Needing to use an ice pack when it's cold out is cruel and unusual punishment.

One of these days, the knee is going to say "enough!" I hope it's not this time. So far, it doesn't seem to be, but it's still Not Fun.

More Not Fun awaited me at home. All that ice we've been having? It appears to have torn the gutter off the side of the garage. Or, more precisely, half-torn. Which means there's an unsightly mess, with half of the gutter still attached, a twist in the middle, and the rest of it dangling down to the ground. I've been putting off the call to s Mr. Gutter to replace the one in back that I lost a few years ago. A quick look at his website this afternoon confirmed my impression that the repairs will probably cost a little less than the amount of the deductible on my homeowner's insurance, so I'm not inclined to file a claim.

I wish the damage weren't visible to anyone coming down the driveway. I'm not inclined to try removing it myself or even to have Mr. Gutter remove it until there's something less than a foot of snow and ice on the ground underneath. Leaving it hanging there does not appear to put the garage itself at any further risk; the shabby appearance is just an embarrassment. It's affront to my sense of pride, which tends to be distinctly shaky on the home upkeep and improvement front as it is.

The day wasn't all bad, far from it.

One of the stops on my errands run was at Turley Publications to proof Sybils & Spaceships, the chapbook of Jo Walton's poetry that I edited for NESFA Press in time for her GoH appearance at Boskone 46 next week. The proof looked good; the finished chapbook should look even better. I'll post a link to ordering information as soon as the chapbook is available. Folks coming to Boskone will be able to pick it up it in person. $12 (and discounted at the convention, IIUC). 44 pages plus cover. Tasty, tasty. It's an honor to work with such good material, and a delight thanks to its creator, who is an utter pleasure to work with. Thanks, papersky! I look forward to handing you your author's copies next week!

Onward, with something of a limp.

Yes, the one in Massachusetts.

It's been snowing for hours. It's the fine, little flakes that fill the sky and take forever to accumulate, so we've only added 2" to the snow already piled high on the ground.

The 4-8" of snow that we were supposed to get the rest of today (followed by another 1-3" tonight) has been downgraded to 3-6". Lest you think this good news, I will also mention that the 0.3" of ice that was forecast is now listed at 0.8" of ice.

My meeting in Cambridge tonight was cancelled. My class at the elementary school gym here in Wales was cancelled. I have a holiday box of Lush treats from lsanderson and fresh, clean sheets on the bed. The only drawback to the day and night ahead is that the Cocoa Latte is with the rest of the Reno party supplies that I left at the NESFA Clubhouse. I don't have to have the Cocoa Latte to make hot cocoa; the small kitchen appliance just makes cocoa dead simple and frothy, too.

Oh, there is that little matter of having piles and piles of stuff that needs doing, um, now.

Fortunately, they're pretty much all inside projects.. Win-win.

Stay warm, everybody.

That's what Weather Underground is reporting for the current condition in Wales. Ah, yup. 100% change of precipitation, they got that right, too.

I climbed the hill of ice called my driveway up to the mail box, then took a look around the yard on the way back to the house. The birch tree is horizontal again. There are thoroughly-iced oak leaves up by the road. The oak leaves still dangling from their branches, of course.

Remember the photo of the iced pine from the December ice storm? The ice is 2-3 times as thick on each needle this time around, and we're headed into the long night rather than noontime sun and warmth.

I wondered why I'm not hearing trees and branches crack and fall, then surmised that the most vulnerable ones are already on the ground. It's also not as windy. That's helping. But the ice...there's so much more ice this time around.

Apparently it's not causing much in the way of real world problems in the area so far. I've checked Boston.com, MassLive.com, and all of the Springfield TV station websites. The coverage is all from this morning and early afternoon, with headlines like Few problems reported from miserable wintry mix. And, yes, that article quotes someone talking about how the December ice storm weeded out the weaker trees.

Still, it's a lot of ice out here west of 128...and 495.

Duh.

That 40# bag of ice melt in my garage isn't there for looks or to take up space. There's plenty of more interesting stuff to cover those bases.

Many thanks to galtine1, intelligentrix, timill, and madtruk for pointing out the salt/kitty litter/dark ash metric tonne of prevention treatment options for my driveway. I've scraped the layer of slush that was willing to part with the hardened slush and ice beneath it, took some photos of the iced magnolia and alien greenery, spread a layer of Road Runner Ice Melt, then came inside and popped the Aroma Wrap from lesliet_ma into the microwave. Two minutes later and its warmth is coursing through my chilled skin and tired muscles, all the way to the bone. Nice.

As skzb has been known to sing, "War is bad. Peace is good." In addition to helping you move bodies, real friends help melt the ice and warm my soul. Thank you, all.

So I went out with the shovel and ice scraper for a test run. There's a layer of "chop-chop-chop" ice underneath the "push it out of the way" slush. I am not going to spend the next couple of hours working in the freezing rain clearing the pavement inch by inch only to leave a smooth, clean surface for ice to build up on again. And I'm not going to push the slush out of the way, for that would only provide a direct ice-to-ice bonding surface.

Instead, I'm going to have a cup of chocolate hazelnut cocoa. The Cocoa-Latte just stopped spinning.

...the short version of this afternoon's Accuweather forecast includes these words:

"...ice accumulations may cause power outages."

Oh, joy.

More of that noisy freezing rain stuff has been falling from the sky. No cracking tree branches yet, unless they're SPDs. My sixty-four thousand dollar question du jour is whether or not to go out and remove the lake of slush covering the concrete apron and bottom part of my driveway.

If I do, the rest of the freezing rain that falls today may well turn into thick glare ice that's all but impossible to remove until the temperature warms up again and the ice melts.

If I don't and the slush lake freezes hard while the freezing rain continues falling and the temperature drops, the driveway lake ice will be thick enough to supporting a fishing shack until spring.

Okay, maybe not until spring....

There's likely to be a period of some unknown number of hours after the freezing rain is through falling and before the slush freezes rock hard. Whether or not I'll notice when that is and remove the slush in time is problematic at best.

At least I'm not trying to drive in this. And the power is still on and steady. (Knocking wood....)

Yes, I live here. By choice and All That Jazz....

...my world looked like this. Click through for 9 more snapshots of the view here at Toad Woods this morning

Iced Small Pine, with Zeppelin Hangar in background Before the sun came out and it all melted...

National Grid's online service knows my power has been restored. That's nice.

Here's hoping Verizon's service restoration estimate is wildly pessimistic:

The number you are reporting is part of an outage.
The estimated restoration time for this outage is 12/15/2008 11:00 PM.
If your trouble is other than No Dial Tone, please contact us.

My cell signal strength is shaky here at Toad Woods. Calls sometimes get through; other times they go to voice mail. The best way to reach me looks to be email for the duration...however long that proves to be.

Interior temperature is now 56 degrees Fahrenheit rather than 53. I'm not taking the long johns off yet.

(Yes, I have the option of building a fire in either of the two fireplaces if I want a blast of toasty warmth. I just may do that tonight when the cold front settles in.)

The National Grid storm center has the following to say about my electrical outage:

Outage Details:
Our records indicate an outage began on Friday, 12/12/2008 at 12:21 AM in your area.
Restoration Estimate: Saturday, 12/13/2008 at 4:00 PM
Estimated Customers Affected: 1053
Please Note:
This data is based on conditions that may change due to weather, field reports, and other factors.
Areas may be restored at different times due to our restoration process.

I called the neighbors. Still no power there, but power has been restored on a nearby street. I asked them to call me if they get power back, and will touch base with them before buying a generator.

Hallelujah!

The neighbors just called! Their electricity is back. No guarantees, of course, but mine probably is, too.

Here's hoping my next update is from Toad Woods.

I heard the UPS give up the ghost around 4:30 am and woke several times after that, confirmed there was still no power, and went back to sleep. After something like a total of 7-8 hours had passed, I got up to survey the damage and figure out my next steps.

Wales is encased in ice, though it was warm enough that the roads were just damp and not slippery by the time I was on them. The sun came out, ice was raining down from the trees, and I expect the beauty of the whole thing to have passed by the time I return home. I snapped a few pictures; I'll upload them to my computer later and post any that are worth looking at.

The whole town of Wales is without power, and five National Grid trucks are reported to be working in the area. I heard one report that service is expected to be restored this afternoon. Hope so! My primary concern is getting heat back in time to prevent pipes from freezing. This afternoon is fine; the weather report for tonight and tomorrow? Not so much.

I'm down at the Panera in Manchester, researching generators and such. My compliments and thanks to the anonymous poster, presumably from Main Power Connect, for the truly useful links in reply to my first post about the power being out.

Home phone service was working with pulse dial this morning, but then vanished just before I headed south out of the ice. I figure I'll wait until power is restored and report the outage then I'm still without a dial tone.

As I was about to head out of Wales, I called debgeisler who then took a look at Boston.com and told me Wales has plenty of company -- some 350,00 Massachusetts residents are without power, and the numbers quickly climb to 1 million when we add in the rest of New England. From the looks of things, Toad Woods got off easy.

New Mailbox: Installed!

Here's the new mailbox, and the view looking west along Monson Road. Four more new pictures are yours for the viewing if you click on the image above.

I believe this will be the final report, much as I ought to end with a picture that shows mail delivered to the box.

Today's installment is a tad too predictable, so I'll start with it and then go back to the mailbox-related surprise from Friday night. ( And I'll put it all behind a cut )

Mailbox Bolt Collage

They're bolts. Thanks to a link from David Levine, I know they're either SAE J429, Grade 8 or ASTM A354, Grade BD bolts. Complete with an extra cute little triangle in their markings. Unless the triangle makes them something altogether different in the bolt world, that is. There aren't any little triangles on any of the grade markings shown at the American Fastener website.

These bolts hold a wooden board to the cast iron plate at the top of my mailbox pole. The whole thing looks homemade...by a Tool Guy whose mailbox had been vandalized, I'd bet. The bolts are made of medium carbon alloy steel or plain alloy steel, "quenched and tempered." Their strength properties are 25-41% greater than high strength structural bolts and 2-3 times greater than standard, everyday bolts. They're serious overkill for the job of holding a 5/8" thick piece of plywood 6" wide and 17-3/8" long to a piece of iron. Tool Guy used six of them. ( Further mailbox natter within, including a small design project with fannish amusement value )

Yes, I'll post a snapshot or two of the new box, complete with its two doors, spiff interior sign, and other details as soon as it stops raining and I finish installing it.

What's wrong with this picture? Well, there's the fact that I had to use a flash to take this photo at 4:15 pm a good six weeks before the winter solstice. That's wrong no matter how you cut it. But that's been true every other November 13th I've lived here, and in each of those four Novembers, there's been a mailbox secured to the top of the post'n'platform you see here. Ahem.

Wednesday afternoon I walked up the driveway to pick up the mail only to discover that not only was there no mail there, there was no mailbox, either. WTF?

I always figured that the hunk of granite next to the mailbox was deliberately placed. I'm sure it's saved many a drive-by mailbox crushings in the years it's been there. The rock and the sturdy metal post are not attractive targets for the sorts of vandals who led the Wales Librarian to hang her mailbox on chains from a sturdy nearby tree after losing several mailboxes to the bored youth of western Massachusetts. Alas, the Gentle Rock of Persuasion couldn't stop one or more someones from simply yanking the my box off its platform and making off with it. ( Better to lose an empty mailbox than a full one )

Three years ago today, Milo came to live with Miss Conduct and Mr. Improbable. There's a full tribute to the Miloversary at Miss Conduct's blog, complete with poetry and a link to last year's Miloversary post.

I'm honored to be spending this special day with him, and will note that even though I took this picture 6 days ago, he's in a pose quite similar to the one below as I type this note.

Milo at Toad Woods Here's Milo, next to my desk. We spend a lot of time here.

The world I live in is far, far different than anything I thought or expected it might be when I was growing up. Today's proof of that is that a dragonfly just spent most of a minute perched on the edge of my laptop screen.

I'm sitting on my back deck, working on a client project, with music I like in the background and the squirrels raising a racket in the trees. The entire notion that I could make what passes for a living under such idyllic circumstances was well beyond my childhood comprehension.

This isn't my everyday existence. But it is my existence this afternoon, and that is a fine thing, indeed.

One CD ended and I'm now on to the next. And so it will be with work and everything else.