Having Casey home in winter has made it much less onerous, maybe even tolerable.  Before his retirement he worked long hours clearing the highways during snow and ice season.  We got bigger paychecks for it, so I didn’t complain, but got accustomed to spending winter days holed up in the house alone. Now he’s holed up here with me and I don’t have to talk to myself…of course, I still do..

He’s been working like a fiend upstairs, putting up beadboard, painting walls, and the cleaning that goes along with it all.  I thought it would take him longer, but he finished up yesterday.   It looks immensely better and tremendously brighter and cleaner…

These days we really don’t use the upper rooms except for guests and storage, so it will be a while before I actually pull this room back together. I think I might be selling some more furniture….  As long as it’s all habitable for Camp Sonnystone, it will be fine.

One rainy day last week, I was staring morosely outside and this caught my eye…

It’s a bad picture because I took it from my front door through the glass and then through the screen on the front porch, and it was pouring rain outside.  I believe it’s a young Cooper Hawk.  He looked dazed and was just standing there looking around.  Then he tried to spread his left wing and pulled it back in very quickly.  He walked around with a limp and pecked around.  I figured he was hurt, but would be able to fix himself, but I kept an eye on him.  It took him about 30 minutes before he finally flew to a low branch on a tree nearby, but he didn’t stay up there long and was back down on the ground about 15 minutes later.  Finally  a couple of hours after I first spotted him,  he was gone…  You never know what a storm will blow in…

The lack of sunshine around the Acres is killing me.  This year’s been particularly gloomy and I’d normally be whining to get on the road, but the genealogy obsession is making time fly…

I’m researching and compiling and writing so much that my carpal tunnel is flaring up.  (anybody use an ergonomic mouse they can recommend?)

Becoming reacquainted with American history from the vantage point of my age has been eye-opening.  High school Textbooks covered decades with a couple of paragraphs, it seems to me.  I don’t remember being all that excited about George Washington or the Revolutionary War.  It seemed very remote and not at all glamorous, and the whole wooden teeth thing turned me off of George.

Now I’m researching ancestors that lived in that time and as I read the names of Revolutionary War muster rolls it’s not so far away.  My fam is from Maryland, so I’ve learned all about the Maryland 400, who Gen. Washington praised for saving his a** at the Battle of Long Island.  My ancestor was not in that battle, but he was most likely in another Maryland regiment.

See?  I’m all about the ancestry thing right now… I have made some new blogger friends that share my genealogy fetish, but I don’t mean to leave all you Sonnystoners out of the fun.  Drop on by!

All My Ancestors

Peace