NEW Chiron's Grove?

I did it. I have raised my boys past the time they need to live in active cities with good schools. This is rather surprising, as my youngest is only 15. But he won a place at Simon's Rock, a college for those who are ready to start college young, after his (to hear him tell it) punishingly tedious freshman year in high school. And my eldest, well, he outshone himself with perfect scores on the math SATs and also won a place at an excellent school, Gettysburg College. This means that, hallelujah! I can move south.

I'm moving to a small home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here it is:

This little cottage is on a lot of acreage and is a great place to keep horses. I still have Rocket, and I picked up another horse who will meet us there in about 3 weeks. 

I never blogged about this, but I broke my neck last year on November 20th, a scary number of fractures to C1 and C2. I also suffered a concussion and a fracture to my sternum. It's a long story, worth telling, but my posts will have to be short while I recover from the concussion. I have a hard time processing the written word. While I was recovering from the neck fractures (and I have recovered), my mother died. Soon afterwards, while I was still weak and vulnerable, I broke four ribs and ended up spending a few confusing days in the hospital with a high fever from pneumonia. Almost exactly two months later, while I was still laid up and trying to get rid of an unavoidable addiction to morphine, my first husband and dear friend through the years, died very suddenly of untreated (in fact undiagnosed) diabetes. 

My family, in particular my sons, helped me through it all. You have no idea what kids are capable of until they are thrown right into the middle of it and manage to come out wiser and even unscathed.

This is a new beginning for me, a chance to live in a more authentic way, to slow down and live as I need to post-traumata. I will write about it here when I can. The real journey begins August 15th, when we leave Vermont, stopping off at Mikey's college to drop him off, then continuing south to Virginia with the cats, the dog, and all the stuff we need for the first couple of months. On August 18th we will again travel north for my elder son to begin his adventure in Gettysburg. The horses will arrive in VA 2 weeks later, and the furnishings will arrive several months later, when I can afford to move them. I rather like the idea of beginning with nothing. We'll see how it feels in practice. And every, every, everything must be built. I have no fences, no barn, only a house with a few beds and a ratty old sofa. 

Let the wild rumpus begin!