Home Again (June 25)
Our house was rented to one person from Jan. 1 through June 30 and to another from July 1 through December 31. It seemed prudent to check for damage, etc between renters, so we have headed home. Our first renter, a new faculty member at Penn State, had finished moving to his newly purchased house at the end of May, so we released him from his last week of the lease, and were looking forward to being at the house.
The trip from Ithaca to State College, is now only about 3 hours, due to road improvements, and I have to say that more frequent visits will be in our future. However, we did not get off to an early start. Since we needed to drive the RV to the house to unload, and then to the Grange Fairground to park, this was a bit worrisome.
When we pulled up to the house, we immediately saw that we had new neighbours next door. We went over to introduce ourselves, and we are looking forward to getting to know Anna and Carl better when we get back. We had a fairly long talk, so we feel like we know them a bit. They helped us move my mother’s (very heavy) carpet and also gave us a tour of their house.
Between our visit with them and all the things we wanted to unload (things from my mother’s house, items from the RV which we were not using, and lots and lots of laundry) we took quite a bit of time. However, we were able to get our RV to the Grange Fairgrounds during daylight to find a storage spot. Fortunately, there were others parking at the same time, was we found a appropriate parking space even though none of the staff were around.
The next day was a heavy working day for me, with a Ph.D. defense and a meeting with a graduate student. We also had a ridiculously big stack of mail, considering that we had picked up the mail only a few weeks previous.
Most of the week was spent doing practical stuff around the house, or just enjoying being home. I put up the bird feeder, and was pleased to find that our yard attracts a variety of birds, including a humming bird. I was surprised at just how quickly my flower beds had become completely overgrown with weeds. I seldom spend a lot of time weeding, but I guess pulling a few each day keeps then down when we are home. I was pleased, however, that I was able to enjoy garlic and kale from the garden, so that I got to enjoy some of my summer bounty.
I was a bit disappointed to find that the Wednesday departmental lunch had stopped for the summer, but enjoyed lunch with friend Don instead, while Chuck went to work. In the evening Chuck and I had dinner with Murali, Jim and Gloria.
Thursday and Friday were spent doing things around the house and walking around the neighborhood. The construction that was started on our street last summer is supposed to be completed this summer, but keeps stalling, so there were great piles of gravel and huge sections of pipe at various places.
State College has sprouted lawn signs. When I left, quite a few people had signs supporting inclusiveness – our nice protest at the current state of the government. To this have been added signs protesting development of land on the watershed for more housing.
The land in dispute is currently owned by Penn State. Penn State is a land grant university. The land grant universities were established by the federal government around the time of the civil war, in order to provide better agricultural and engineering training. Because the government was short of funds but rich in land, each university was granted a large amount of land, which they were to use to fund the development of the university – by use, by sale or whatever means they had to raise capital. (Interesting factoid: Cornell U almost did not get built because the land they were granted was so useless.) So, Penn State’s sale of land, although unusual at this point in time, is in keeping with the purposes for which the land was granted. The controversy over the sale seems to depend on two points: the fact that the need for funds at this time may be due to the huge expenses incurred due to the Sandusky scandal, and the possibility that development might impact water quality. With signs on many lawns, the battle lines are now clearly drawn up but we will wait until we really get back to see if we need to wade into this controversy.
We needed several trips to the RV to bring back all the laundry, etc that we had unloaded. However, by Saturday morning we were ready for our new tenant, a freshly minted law professor with a 6 month contract at PSU.
We were happy to meet the new tenant, who seems like a very reasonable guy. His main interest is in working, and he immediately asked whom he could hire to take care of the lawn and do some cleaning. He just accepted a position in England for next January, so not having to purchase any household items is definitely a bonus for him.
By Saturday afternoon, we were set up at the Grange Fairgrounds.