Meet the newest member of the Barbour family

Abbey Hunny Bee Barbour

Meet Abbey. She is the newest member of our family. We adopted her yesterday from the Campbell County Animal Shelter, and we are so excited!

She is about one year old and very small, weighing just seven and a half pounds. We have her in a separate room in the house, and she is looking more comfortable as time goes by.

Yesterday, she spent most of the day hiding underneath furniture. Off and on, I sat in the room and talked to her, read, and watched some TV. Last night, I went in and put on some soft music. She came out from under the sofa, sniffed my hand, then came to me so I could pet her and hold her. She is such a sweetheart!

Today we took her to our vet to be tested for feline leukemia and FIV—both came back negative. She got some of her shots, and we set up an appointment to have her spayed in three weeks when it’s time for her booster shots.

Larry said she’s already mama’s cat. But I’ve spent more time with her than he has. Once he spends more time with her, she will adore him, I’m sure.

Chase Bird? Well, he’s not too happy. We are keeping the door closed between the two kitties, but they have caught glimpses of each other. It’s a process for cats to get used to each other.

Our vet advised us to keep her isolated from Chase Bird for a couple of weeks because we don’t know if she perhaps caught an upper respiratory infection at the shelter.

I first saw Abbey on Feb. 1 when I went to the shelter to cuddle with the cats. Her name was Hunny Bee at that time.  

When I held her, she was a purr-baby and so affectionate. She also seemed tolerant of the other cats around her.

I kept thinking about her, but I didn’t do anything about adopting. We just weren’t quite ready.

Then I saw on the Facebook page of Friends of Campbell County Animal Control (a volunteer group that works to get the shelter animals fostered and adopted) that Hunny Bee had been adopted. I comforted myself with the thought that she had gotten a good home.

Then Hunny Bee popped up on Facebook again, available for adoption.

Sunday, when Larry and I went to visit her at the shelter, we learned that she had been adopted by a family with small children, and it wasn’t a good mix. So they returned her to the shelter four days later.

She had originally been surrendered to the shelter by her owner, so there she was at the shelter, given up twice. She had been there for four months.

Now she has a home with us, and we plan for it to be her forever home.

Where did her name come from? Her full name is Abbey Hunny Bee Barbour. We wanted to add Abbey but help her get used to it by keeping the Hunny Bee. We like the name Abbey because one of our favorite TV characters is named Abby (Pauley Perrette’s character on NCIS). We added the “e” in affection for our good friend Ann, whose first dog was named Abbey.

Snow in Central Virginia

Hello, dear readers. I hope you have been warm and safe wherever you are. Central Virginia has had frigid temperatures in the single digits to 0 and even below, and that’s not taking into account the wind chill. That is very unusual for our area, and some records were broken.

We also got snow Monday and Tuesday, a little snow on Wednesday, then more snow and ice on Saturday. We haven’t been out of the house more than necessary. I love winter, but even I’m looking forward to some warm sunshine. More cold is coming, though.

Here are some pictures I managed to get this week. Some were with my phone and some were with my camera through a window.

And I hope I’ll have more to say on Thursday. Sigh.

Snow falling Monday, late afternoon. The road is already covered.

Snow on the lower driveway, Saturday.

Small pine tree branch caught in the snow.

Cat prints in the snow, apparently from a neighborhood kitty. Please bring outside pets indoors when the temperatures drop!

Ice clinging to the tree branches Sunday morning.

The streets were very slick on Sunday morning.

Snow at the Peaks

We had read online that there was four inches of snow up on the mountain. We didn’t have any snow in Altavista Thursday morning as we started west toward the Peaks of Otter, but as the road started to climb in Bedford County, we began to see patches of snow. And we could see snow on Sharp Top Mountain in the distance.

By the time we got to the Peaks of Otter Lodge, it was clear that for the second year in a row, we were going to have Thanksgiving dinner in a snow-covered natural setting.

You probably know by now that Larry and I love snow. When we visited Mountain Lake in Giles County last Thanksgiving, we were thrilled to find snow.

This year, the forecast for snow caused us a little concern because if it got too heavy, the Park Service would close the Blue Ridge Parkway, and dinner would be canceled.

We made it safely to the lodge, though, and enjoyed a beautiful buffet of roasted turkey, cornbread and apple stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, and so many other meats and side dishes.

It seems that now Larry and I have started a tradition: we must eat Thanksgiving dinner where there’s snow.

 Once we parked the truck, I got out my camera and started taking photos. We slowly walked to the lodge as I stopped again and again to try to capture the beauty around us.

This is the first photo I took of Sharp Top.

  

When we turned back around a few minutes later, clouds were rolling in.

 There seemed to be at least four inches of snow resting on the ground around the guest lodgings.

  

This is a view of Abbott Lake behind the lodge.

  

These red buds were a pretty contrast to the brown of the weeds and the white snow.

 Snow on trees—one of the loveliest ways snow decorates nature.

  

Another view of Sharp Top.

More views of the lake.

They already had their Christmas decorations up. A large tree stood in the lobby.

  

I especially liked these decorations because of the bears included.

Our table had a good view of the lake. A small tabletop tree stood beside the table. I took this photo with my phone against the light, so it's not a great shot. But I liked the rustic decorations.

Once we sat down to eat, facing the lake, the sun broke through the clouds and shined directly into Larry’s eyes. So we quickly adjusted our seating at the table. You never know when nature will change.

No, I didn’t get any photos of the food. But it was delicious. And I ate a lot. The first thing I did when I got home was to change into sweatpants. My nice dress slacks seemed to have gotten tighter just since that morning. Wonder what caused that?

Looking out the window

One morning in late October, Chase Bird and I shared some time looking out the window that overlooks the driveway and side yard.

Chase Bird is Chief of Lookout Activities in the Barbour home.

We saw squirrels and birds going about their morning activities.

Here’s Chase Bird in position.

We thought the squirrels were showing off a little bit just for him.

I was surprised to see a robin this late in the year.

We liked this little brown bird, but I couldn’t tell Chase Bird what kind it was. Anyone know?

Despite his name, Chase Bird doesn’t chase birds. He’s an indoors only kitty. And I keep telling him, “Birds are our friends.”

He nods and smiles a little. And goes back to look out the window.

What have you seen out your window lately?

Deer in the road

Fall colors: red leaves and blue sky.

It’s that time of year again when driving, especially at night, makes me a little nervous because of concern over deer in the road.

Deer are plentiful in our area year-round. They often visit our yard, and we see them in other places in the neighborhood. We enjoy their presence.

 

This is a poor photograph, but it's one I took through the window at night in September. The deer set off the motion lights in the yard. If I open the door to go out and try for a better photo, they run.

But the big fear is that we’ll hit one while driving.

According to the Virginia DMV, most deer-related accidents in Virginia occur in the fall months, October through December.

I was part of those statistics five years ago, in December 2009.

I was driving back to Altavista from Forest, which is in Bedford County, a neighboring county. The back roads I took were curvy and sometimes narrow, but the route cut miles off the trip and provided lovely views.

It was about 10:30 in the morning. I had seen a deer standing in a yard as I passed, so I had a fresh reminder of their presence. I was just tooling along, under the speed limit. I wasn’t listening to the radio. I wasn’t eating. I was just driving.

And it still happened.

My car hit something as I came around a curve. I saw a deer flashing away from my car. The hood of my car was crumpled.

I was shocked, but I managed to find a place to pull over. A kind couple turned their pickup around and came to check on me. We looked at my car. Deer hair covered the hood. Everything in the front seemed pushed towards the front seats. It was a mess.

The couple stayed with me until the state trooper arrived. Then Larry arrived.

He said as he walked up to my car, the trooper turned to him and said, “She’s all right. But I think she’s more upset about the deer than the car.”

“That would be right,” Larry said to him.

And I was upset. I felt terrible that I had hit the deer. Apparently it had jumped a fence and then tried to clear the road. The trooper speculated that hunters were out with dogs, running the deer.

I was lucky. I wasn’t hurt and my car, though heavily damaged, wasn’t totaled. I was especially nervous driving for a while, but that settled down.

What I kept thinking was, I did everything I could to avoid an accident. I wasn’t speeding. I wasn’t distracted. And I still hit a deer.

That notion that we can do everything “right” and still have trouble is sobering, and not an easy one to accept when you have an uneasy relationship with uncertainty, as I do.

After the crash, my boss gave me some little whistle-like gadgets to put on the front fender. They are supposed to help prevent deer from running out in front of your car. I don’t know if they actually work, but I was willing to try them, and they’re still on my car.

And that idea that bad things can happen anytime? I have to accept it. I have to get used to it. All I can do is my best to drive carefully. That’s all any of us can do.

Do you see wildlife near the highways where you live?

The blessing of animals

I am letting this photograph and some quotes speak for me today.

“Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.”

― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals

“Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored”

― Alice Walker

“What sets humans apart from animals is that we have to walk around saying how smart we are, and animals just live their lives.”

― Chanctetinyea J.J. Ouellette

“Lacking a shared language, emotions are perhaps our most effective means of cross-species communication. We can share our emotions, we can understand the language of feelings, and that's why we form deep and enduring social bonds with many other beings. Emotions are the glue that binds.”

― Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy and Why They Matter

What do you think the crow and the squirrel are saying to each other? 

Celebrating

After a week of rain on and off, the sun shone this Saturday and Sunday and temperatures were in that lovely range of 50s and 60s. In other words, we enjoyed some glorious fall days.

It was also Larry’s birthday weekend.

In celebration of his special day and my slowly easing pain from the pinched nerve (fingers crossed!), we spent some time outside enjoying the blue sky, the changing leaves, and the air that just feels fresher somehow.

Saturday night, we drove to Gretna, a nearby town, to have dinner at J.T.’s at the Lavalette. The house was built in the 1880s, with additions constructed in the 1920s.

It’s a lovely old house that now provides an excellent place to enjoy good food among the best things about old houses: huge windows, eleven fireplaces, hardwood floors, high ceilings, and a wide, wrap-around porch.

The Lavalette House before dark.

The Lavalette House after dinner, with darkness setting in.

Sunday, we traipsed around outside our house and in English Park, down by the Staunton River.

Larry at the end of the driveway, getting the paper out of the box.

These trees are in our neighbor's yard. I like the red and yellow so close together.

 

These red leaves are on one of the oak trees in our front yard.

Looking across the Staunton River.

We made a lot of noise as we walked over the leaves carpeting the ground beside the river.

A view of the river between the trees.

An Eagle Scout planted an orchard in the park as part of the steps he took to become an Eagle.

The sign explains the purpose of the orchard. It includes apple, pear, and plum trees.

What have you been celebrating lately?

Contentment

Happy October! Now that we’ve started the first “full” month of the new season, it really feels like fall to me.

I’m writing about contentment today.

I’ve never had a desire for great excitement or daily adrenaline rushes. I’ve just wanted peace.

For me, peace is a contentment with life. It’s not a life where everything is necessarily going well, or where I’ve reached big goals.

It’s a sense of well-being, a belief that whatever life throws at me, I will handle. It’s the ability to enjoy the moment while moving toward accomplishments I’m passionate about.

I’m feeling more like that lately. With the help of my husband, my cat, my mental health treatment, the people in my day-to-day life, and you, dear readers, I am sturdier on this path I’m on.

I’m not expecting all smooth sailing up ahead. I have far to go and more battles, I’m sure.

But I am believing more in myself and my ability to build that big life—which is really a full life—that I’ve wanted.

Nature is one of the ways I connect to life. I feel a part of something bigger. Even the little bits of nature are beautiful to me.

On that note, can you stand a couple more photos of acorns?

It’s raining acorns here. At least, that what it sometimes sounds like. I sat in the car the other day and just listened to them fall, bouncing on the driveway and ground.

Larry continues to work on gathering them and getting them off the driveway. I loved this pile he made. It looks like the perfect supply for some hungry squirrels or deer.

I noticed an acorn lying flat on the bricks outside the door on my way to work one morning. That evening, I picked it up and was fascinated by the view of the inside of an acorn. In this photo, Larry is holding it up for me to get the shot.

Knitting is still going on inside the house. I bought a larger size pair of needles and some chunky yarn and started another scarf. This one is blue, a color Larry picked out. I love the flow of the bigger needles and yarn.

I’ve been feeling more content lately, and for that, I am thankful.

What has been making you content lately?

Nearing the end of the growing season

The raised bed garden on Aug. 23, 2014.

The harvest from our raised bed garden is nearing its end. We’re still getting a few cucumbers, but other plants have died, wilted, or been pulled up.

It was a season of adventure and disappointment. We didn’t get the tomatoes we wanted—blight took most of them. And we didn’t get any broccoli—green worms got those plants.

But we got plenty of two types of lettuce, lots of cucumbers, peppers, and onions. We felt the pleasure of working soil. We enjoyed the excitement of watching something grow from seeds—watching that process will never get old.

And we learned a lot.

*Decide early on if you’re going to use pesticides or go organic.

*Don’t plant too much, too close together.

*You will have to thin some plants.

*If you buy plants, buy early and buy the best looking ones you can find.

*Get a good gardening book.

Seedlings in April 2014.

Raised bed garden on May 10, 2014.

The addition of tomatoes on May 19, 2014.

Raised bed garden on June 15, 2014.

This fall, we’ll be working on the soil in the bed. The topsoil that we bought for it was supposed to be great for planting. But we found that it contained a lot of clods of dirt difficult to break up. And the soil got too hard once it dried.

Larry has already worked up one section with materials including peat moss and perlite. We’ll do the rest this fall and add some composting type materials to it, too.

And I plan to learn more about organic gardening and have supplies on hand early next year.

All in all, it’s been a rewarding experience. And like all farmers, we hope for a better crop next year.

If you have a garden, how did yours do this year?