CONGRATULATIONS!

Yay hubby!

Today he passed his OEC course and is now certified for Outdoor Emergency Care.

This means he is ready to go with Ski Patrol!

Ski on!

Cruising

For the first time in ten years, since we have been in the heating business, we took a vacation in September! It felt very weird, but very exciting. Fall is the best time in New England. The bugs are gone, the humidity is low, and the temperature is just right! We thought we would go North to see some early foliage. We were off the mark on that one, I am guessing because the coast is a little warmer and later on leaves, but it was beautiful none the less.

I enjoy cruises because our cell phones don't work, hubby is too cheap to pay for wi-fi, we have no phone, and people can't get ahold of us.
Our first stop was cancelled because the port was closed due to remnants of Ike. Frata rata rata frata... so I still have not seen the Bay of Fundy tides. We saw the mud flat when the tide was out in Nova Scotia last year, but the port of St. John in New Brunswick was closed. So we had a day at sea sipping the drink of the day and reading books instead :)

Halifax we have been to (last year) so we shot down to a great coffee place to watch the harbor. Helicopters, and a cool looking cruiser were among the highlights. Tons of sailboats as we were leaving. They looked like toy boats in the water compared to the beast we were on.

Mid-week Art got sick so we did not do much in Sydney, Nova Scotia. We took a little walk around and then headed back to the ship where he could rest. I watched a movie in the lounge and worked out until dinner time.

Another day at sea relaxing, reading, and drinking... We did see whales off in the distance.
By Bar Harbour Art was feeling better. Though I have lived here over ten years we have yet to make it that fa'a No'th to Bah Ha'abah. It was a great little town. Kind of like a liberal Portsmouth... or maybe more like Boulder, CO on the water but beautiful nonetheless. We wandered around town, and had some calamari and Sam on the patio at a local restaurant, then looked through some of the shops and investigated a nearby sandbar- tide was coming in so we headed back.

Then we hopped on the tour bus (so cliche but when you only have eight hours...) up Cadillac Mountain. This is supposed to be the highest mountain on the Eastern Seaboard, but I swear I heard the same about another hill last month when we were in Ogunquit so I will take that with a grain of salt. Great ride up on a rare cloudless and clear day. You could see Mount Katadin in the distance, as well as all the little islands and hills in the harbor.
Then back to Bean Town.
We had to hurry off the boat because Sunday was the day of Harvest Festival in our quaint little town. The fire department does a roast chicken lunch as a fundraiser. Sold 110 chicken lunches. Boys outside cooking the chicks over an open fire (of course) and the auxiliary inside serving the chick with corn, cole slaw, potato salad, a roll, and a dessert (from our cookbook which was for sale too ;) Then outside to mingle, listen to the band, eat maple cotton candy, and drink fresh pressed apple cider. Think stereotype and you have it! Some folks even dress up in old time clothes (don't know why... don't wanna ask... in case they try to make me do it too!) Good week.

Horrors

We recently started up our Netflix subscription after taking the summer off. Last night was Art's pick- Legend. I love Wil Smith, so even though I heard it was scary I agreed to watch it.
I am not a scary movie person. I went to see Raiders of the Lost Ark with my church group when it came out (I must've been six or seven?) and had nightmares for weeks. I haven't gotten much better since. After hubby talked me into watching The Ring I wouldn't let him leave my side for over a week. Don't get me wrong I love bloody gory movies like Die Hard, Kill Bill, or Pulp Fiction. Even movies like Fargo, and No Country for Old Men are right up my alley. I just don't like horror movies!
So last night we watched Legend. I had Art on one side with a firm grip on his hand, Zoi on my lap, and I even pulled Polar up on the futon for additional support. Poor dog, he got so stressed out each time I jumped, or gasped and ducked my head into Art. He kept saying "It's just a movie!" I left the room for the final scenes and at this point hubby was mocking me about how it was 'just a movie.' After the movie he went down to watch Saw or Ghost Ship. DH tried to get me to watch Ghost Ship once. I will forever have the image of people being cut in half by metal wires imprinted in (on?) my mind's eye... ((shudder))
I turned on The Girls Next Door and Gene Simmons to try to clear the creepy images from my head when Art's cell phone rang. It was a little after nine. MJ from the fire department said that our big pellet supplier a couple of towns over has just had a second alarm for a fire at the plant. CRAP! (only the other word!) We turned on Art's pager and listen in for a while. Crews were being called from several surrounding town's. We tried to get tac 1 on Art's radio for on the scene details, but couldn't.
So, we headed down to the station. MJ and another officer were already there. We listened over the next couple of hours as the fire moved from the an electrical panel to the cooler, then outside to the large 20 ton storage silos. Our town didn't get called, but everyone around us did including a ladder truck from a nearby training facility.
After a couple of hours it was obvious that our fd was not going to be called so we headed home. I had to ask Art if this was "just a movie." Not this time. We are having our highest demand year for stoves and fuel this year. Stoves are sold out this year and allocated half way through next year. Pellet mills are running 24/7 to try to keep up and this will set us back weeks. NOT good. Around midnight we turned in as it seemed that they had it under control and were just mopping up.
First thing this morning we headed over to the plant to check it out. The fire barricades were still up and pumper trucks were still on scene. We talked with the plant manager who said that sometime overnight the fire migrated to their large (60 ton?) raw material silo. Then more engines and tankers started to pull in. I ask about our friend who owns the company. Poor guy was stuck on Martha's Vineyard. He couldn't get back last night on a plane because of the severe thundestorms, and the ferries weren't running.
Then Art's phone rang. MJ called to ask if he could be late for work because our fd was paged for cover duty relating to the fire. Art said yes and btw grab his gear, he would meet them at the cover station. Then Art's pager went off again. I dropped him off at the cover fire department then hurried back home to try to finish a deal with a commodoties broker to secure some (expensive) pellets so we have some for September. I don't think we will be getting any out of the guys nearby for a month or more. (Random cursing)
This is definitely a horror movie that I wish I had NOT seen.

The Good, the bad, and the ugly

Here are some shots on top of Temple Mountain of the recent snow/ice storm. So pretty.





Hate the plow truck driver...


Love the Bobcat! and DH the driver of course :)


Here is a shot of the house whose garage and breezeway fire Art helped fight with mutual aid to a neighboring town this week.

This shot from Monadnock Ledger

Volunteer 2008

Back in October I took a little trip home for my birthday. It just happened to coincide with the monthly FD Auxiliary meeting. So I missed it. No big deal. Right? Wrong. They moved up the nominations for the upcoming year. I wasn't there to say "No thank you." So nominated I was. That's o.k. The gal I was running against is the sil of the Chief, and the Chief's wife was up for Pres. She is a shoe in. Again, wrong. Last night at elections I took it nine to one. Vice Pres of our fancy little volunteer fd auxiliary. Not sure what all the responsibilities include at this point, but I am sure they'll let me know. I was tasked with making everyone new ID's for when we are on-scene. So the fuzz, or the 'blue-canaries' as the guys call them don't give us any grief. (Blue canaries because they dress in blue, and they always go in first. Kind of like the canary in the coal mine...)
Art moved up to 2nd Lieutenant. Just what he wanted :)