Crystal G

Since I was home a little early yesterday, I decided to take some time to play in the stream with Bastian. It really is a beautiful stream, there are even some minnows in a few spots. It needs some cleaning up of some small amounts of trash around the edges (not sure if it washes down stream or what), and some branches that have been swept down stream. There are also a lot of thorn bushes along part of it that I’d like to clear some out so I can open up the stream more for resting (that’ll be a pain).

Dad says there’s a peaceful spot up the stream further in the woods that I’ll probably go check out at some point. I’m amazed at the amount of rocks around here. BIG rocks. We never had rocks like this down in Carroll County. I really like them.

Dad says he found an old horse-shoe in the garden. No clue if it was from a horse in the civil war or not, but I’m willing to bet it is more than likely simply because there’s an old civil war hospital two houses down from us. I want to get my uncle over with his metal detector and see what else is buried here.

I can tell that Gettysburg Tourism season has started. I hear it’s a nightmare. Fortunately I think I’m enough out of the touristy area that I shouldn’t have to worry about it too much unless going through town.

I’ve seen a lot of campers drive by recently. The Grove plans to have a yard sale up here one weekend to make some money for the Grove. I’m definitely in a decent spot to do so I think (I hope).

Dad had a biopsy done on his leg last week to see if there’s anything else going on with his leg that’s helping cause the ulcers (you’d think they’d have found something, I dunno, a few decades ago). No results yet.

I got a call from dad today that he ran over his cellphone with the lawnmower……….again. It cracks me up when he does it, cause I know he feels bad about it. But it’s still funny how often it happens (one time he did lose it plowing snow though, I’ll give him that).

Fortunately for me, Virgin Mobile (our carrier) will send a replacement phone free, you just pay shipping. I will have to buy him a new case to wear on his belt though, so all in all I’m looking at $20 I’ll be spending.

It’s moments like these that I’m glad we have a land-line though. As opposed as I am to it, knowing my dad it’s definitely a good thing to keep around, despite the extra cost.

And if I don’t hype how much I love Virgin mobile enough, no contracts! Best cell service I’ve ever had out of any I’ve tried. And reasonable prices (for me).

I mentioned before while learning more history of my new hometown Gettysburg, that there was only one civilian killed during the entire battle.

One of the Gettysburg blogs I frequent, the Gettysburg Daily, just posted a segment on the house she was killed in (not lived in), including pictures of the damage left behind of the fatal shot that killed her.

I love reading this blog everyday.  It gives great insight on the history around here, which I deeply want to learn about.  I’m amazed that living in Westminster so long, I never once came up to Gettysburg.  Honestly I never knew it was so close.  Now that I live here, at least I’ll have all the time in the world to explore and learn.

I received my first tax notice for Fiscal 2009 on Friday. I wasn’t sure what it was at first and then realized that in PA you have to forward your property tax bills to your mortgage holder to pay out of your escrow account if you have one, which I do.

Right now my escrow account has like $1600 in it, and this bill is for $503.97 if paid by April 30th, which is a 2% discount. Normal price is $514.26 if you pay by June 30th, and the penalty price is $565.69 if I pay by December 2009. Naturally I want the discount so I mailed this off Monday.

I’m very very new to property taxes and escrow though, being as this is my first time owning property. I’m curious, does the $1600 currently in my escrow account mean that I have over $1,000 overpaid in it? Or should I expect another tax bill soon for some other crazy PA tax that would take over the $1,000. Or do they split property tax bills into several payments throughout the year and this is just the first quarter or something? And even so, I’m still paying into my escrow account every month, so the account is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger, so that wouldn’t make sense.

These may just be questions for my mortgage company, but if anyone has any insight, I’d be all the appreciative for it.

Silly PA taxes.

I’m going to set up a reminder on April 1st to verify the payment was received from my mortgage company because 1. I don’t trust mortgage companies to do anything right, and 2. The tax collector does not send a receipt unless you mail a stamped addressed envelop with the payment, which I can’t because I’m not sending the payment.

Dad and I have been trying to contact the construction company that owns the huge wooded lot behind us for weeks now. They’ve never called us back, I don’t know what their deal is. I’m trying to be polite and ask permission to haul dead wood out of there to cut up for firewood.

I’m going to keep trying, but in the mean time I told dad to just start pulling wood out with the tractor. Heck if anything maybe that will get their attention faster. They’re just going to develop it anyway.

Once spring hits we usually like to start preparing our wood stockpile for the next winter, in addition to our normal gardening.

Going to be a busy spring. New cords of wood, whole new garden, whole new set of pens and chickens, almost complete restart of an herb garden.

I just spoke with my dad and he said a friend of the family that was in the accident this morning stopped by to give us their contact info. Apparently the woman has a broken hip and some fractures in her legs (explains the screaming agony when they pulled her out), and the man has some fractures in his face.

Apparently the ambulance guy says he hit the dog with the ambulance? But I don’t remember seeing that, and I watched him arrive and leave. But no one knows where the dog is, if its hurt, or worse…dead. It may require some searching in the woods.

Additional Edit: On the way home my I called my dad again and he said the dog was hit a second time by a woman. But apparently not hit directly, just sorta side-swiped. The woman and my dad went all through the woods and couldn’t find the dog. I did some whistling and put out some food when I got home, but I have yet to see this dog.

I was woken up this morning around 4am by some guy screaming outside. Dad was up putting wood in the woodstove, and a young couple hit a patch of ice out in front of our house and smashed directly into a huge rock on our property. The guy was able to get out and scream for help, which is what woke me up (not the crash). Then my dad ran out and yelled for me to call 911 (whaaa? *in a daze*). The ambulance actually slid past us when it finally saw us trying to flag it down, so I know the roads were crazy icy.

The woman was stuck, they had to use jaws of life to get her out. The guy was in pain but could walk. They had a dog with them too but it jumped out and fled the moment the guy got out.

They blocked off the road with all kinds of flashing light vehicles. It took them an hour to get the woman out, and when they were pulling her out she was screaming in pain which sent chills down my spine. They are getting the vehicle towed now. I took a brief walk in the woods where I could see to see if I could see the dog anywhere, but nothing. If we can find him we’ll hold onto him and feed him until the owners get out of the hospital.

I’m pretty tired now, I may go into work late and let some of this ice melt and get this chill out of my bones.

Here are some pictures after I came back inside. They had already gotten everyone out and were just cleaning up at this point. You can see the huge black void in front of the vehicle, that’s the big rock they hit head on.

From Snow and Ice Shenanigans