Escape to Vermont!

Thanks to the generous help from forum members - Lifeaftertheoilcrash - and the perseverance of perpetuity I and my sweet wife have found ourselves deep into New England - Vermont! A mere 1600 miles from the deep south, a place I have called home for all my life. We've been up here for nearly a month now, only now have I really had the time to settle down and do a little blogging for those interested, and I must declare the scenary, atmosphere, and the new job becoming deeply rooted to my soul. Only feeling the tug of home when I worry about our Winter heating bill, or when my wife becomes sadden at seeing her nephew via skype and knowing she'll only see the family maybe once or twice a year.

We know no-one up here in the capacity of just hanging out and sharing anxieties, but thankfully my forum friends around me in these hills are planting, storing, and herding the goats away from prowling coyoty's and they're within an hour or two of me. Their experiences and nearness settle certain transplant anxieties when they crop up, and of course my family and friends are just a phone call away too. I've started work for White River Valley EMS, everyone just calls them Wirva (WRVA)around here, and the shifts are the best I've ever had to sit through in my entire career. First, I come in for my first 24 - really just 18 hrs on the clock - in which I sleep from 1am to 7am (I'm secondary if the other crew gets a call during that time, I'll start getting paid again), then I work 7a - 7p as secondary (second out on a call). I will go home for 12hrs from 7p to 7a, and the final 24 hr shift is a repeat of the 1st for a total of 48 hrs. After which I'm off for 5 whole days. A very friendly family schedule, and I certainly do love it. They are not that busy usually.

The weather has been what was anticipated - COLD. 30's to 40's for highs and lows from upper 20's to lower 20's. A few nights last week it was in the teens already, and November has just begun. It has snowed a half dozen times, especially at the altitude my house is at 1500', but it hasn't yet stuck to the ground for any length of time. Lately, it's been a slushy mixed, and the skies are typically overcast and dreary. Wet and rainy cold days too. This is Fall, it's the transition to the bitterness of New England Winter. I find it charming, but also alarming as I hear my heat furnace regularly kick on and off. The house I'm in is 200 years old, the original owner was the man who built the famous floating bridge in Brookfield. Long hand choped beams support the floors with 4' wide planks for floors and ceilings. The DC living landlords, in their infinite naivity, decided to go with heating oil and propane for heat. Anyone that is truly a Vermonter knows to go with wood heating. To fill my heating oil tank up costs 800 dollars (at today's heating oil prices), and they say we'll go through a tank a month come January and Febuary. I'm deeply concerned about this. Today, I bought the shrink wrap kits for the windows in order to try and seal up this old house. The insulation is missing in places too, but at least the owners are trying to fix that. Their contractors have been a thorn in our side too, ever since we started to unpack around here. We just got use of our kitchen a few days ago, and are still waiting for the garage to be cleared out. New doors have been ordered, better insulated ones, and their proprieter is attempting to figure out how to gain access to the subfloor of the master bedroom. The house sits atop a stone quarried basement and the subfloor under the bedroom has very little crawl space for the spray in insulator.

In the meantime, we have installed studded snow tires on the car, and just had a brake job done that was long over due. Got 140,000 out of the pair on the matrix. Tomorrow I'll be setting up the invisible fence for the dogs, which will allow them more time to chase moose and turkey on the property. Truthfully, I haven't yet seen a moose, though one was seen last year, but I have seen several flocks of turkeys running through the woods in the back. The Canadian geese keep flying their V formations headed south as I watch the Northern skies signal the approach of the Winter soltace.

So it begins. I'll be discussing the effects of hyperinflation, at an economy near you soon, tomorrow.