One Foot Ahead of the . . .

Recently I realized its been awhile since the last posting. Normally I try to post about once a month to keep the story fresh. The last posting was February 8 so I'm overdue.

Where to start? Much of February was consumed with the relative mundane - getting moved in while continuing to keep everyday life going. Of course, in this family, even the mundane seems to take on a new dimension.


We're feeling pretty well settled into the new house. As we thought, we really like living in this house and in this area. We're doing much less driving than we did at Casco. Although we don't go to Portland or Biddeford more than about once a week, doing so now is about a 30 minute trip rather than close to an hour. The grocery store, gas station and other common things of life are now just minutes away, again cutting driving and expense. The picture below is from our new living room. Much nicer than the old place in Casco. More than the practicalities though is the wonderful feel of this place.

We live about 1/4 mile uphill from the Saco River. We regularly walk the road paralleling the river bank. Like many rivers in Maine, the Saco and the land it flows through is beautiful. We've never lived in proximity to a river before. After several weeks of well-above freezing temperatures, the spring runoff is well underway. There are now rapids in the river just below the dam that were not there in winter. A hydroelectric dam is located just above the rapids. We watched today as several utility workers performed maintenance on the dam while suspended in a basket above the rushing waters. There are definitely more sunny days here than Michigan. Lack of long strings of gray days is a blessing. It doesn't snow as often as Michigan but when it does, the snow fall is substantial - often in the 12"+ range.

Since my last post, I went to Vermont for 3 weeks to startup the synchronous condenser project for an electric utility. It was a very tense time for me, mostly because I was still in a learning mode. The computer control program I wrote had a lot of mistakes that had to be corrected during the startup. Everyone involved was under a lot stress. But the $11MM project started up with only a cooling system problem on one unit. It was quite a thrill to watch the utility dispatcher in Rutland (about 30 miles away) move the 46KV crosscountry transmission line voltage up and down with our new system. Everything worked just the way it was intended. This startup was the culmination of a 2 year project to improve the transmission line across central/southern Vermont. The guy in the picture is my boss Kevin, hard at work programming.


A major focus for us over the last several weeks has been the search for land to purchase. We feel pretty confident we want to live in the Buxton area so we've been concentrating there. For those who haven't bought raw land, it is a whole new ball of wax compared to buying an existing home. If anyone is interested, we found a great book on the subject. It's called "Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country" by Les and Carol Scher. The book is an exhaustive work on country land purchase. We are looking in the 5-10 acre range with the goal to have some forest mixed with clear area for our passive solar house. Cheryl is pictured at one of the parcels we are interested in. We walked it extensively today. It is 10.5 acres across the road from a wonderful forested park on the Saco River. The land was cutover a few years ago so there are relatively few trees of size. But most of the cutover is well populated with pioneer trees of various sizes. Drainage is an area of concern. We hope the nature of the drainage situation will become evident as spring starts.

I wish I had a picture of another 5 acre parcel we looked at in the area to post. Cheryl fancied it as a fixer-upper. I have never seen such a dump! When approached from the road, view of the property was mostly blocked by a high, solid fence in severe disrepair. The trailer was ready for the torch - viewed from the outside! The yard was filled with all kinds of junk. An old 5th wheel trailer, a semi-trailer and a wide assortment of steel junk. It would be a major job just to clean it all out.

I started working at a guitar repair shop every Monday and have been doing it for several weeks. Scott is the owner and is he ever an easy-going, nice guy. He also attended the Galloup School in Big Rapids, about 10 years before I did. He is helping me learn the in's and out's of guitar repair. I also work with a guy named Tom who has been doing repair for about 8 years. He is a 50-something self-described hippy from New Hampshire. He also has a property management business which caters to rich people's places along Maine's coast. He is ramping down this business so he can do what he loves which is repair guitars. The shop is named Acoustic Artisans and is actually a partnership between Scott Conely (guitars) and Jon Cooper (violins). They are located in a multi-story old brick building in downtown Portland. In addition to luthiery, the building also hosts people rehearsing for music performances, people giving music lessons and visual artists. It is a wonderful center of artists and artisans, spontaneously interacting. Impromto jams also break out from time to time. The day goes very quickly when I am working at the shop. I wish I could do it more than once a week but it is unpaid since I'm in learning mode right now. So once a week is all I can afford for now.

Follow this link to Acoustic Artisans. http://www.acousticartisans.com/

While I work 4 days a week, Cheryl is the prime architect of getting us to the next phase of life. When she is not searching for land, she is busy learning about growing and preserving food, buying stuff we need for our new living situation, learning about permaculture, saving us money by lowering the grocery bill, generally keeping the wheels on and most importantly, working with Jayne. Cheryl is the spark plug of our family. We are infinitely grateful for her and her work.

Jayne continues working to adjust to her life here. This move hasn't been as hard on her as it might be for someone in high school. But she misses the social scene from her church group. Today she screwed up her courage and went to meet a couple of fellow home-schooling girls near Biddeford. Cheryl and I are hoping this will go well so she can start feeling more connected here. It's always hard to move and leave friends and family. It's harder yet when you don't have any friends in your new home. But it is all part of the process and good experience for her and us.

Here's Jayne shoveling at the Casco place on moving day.