Author Archives: Jim Muller

Coping With Isolation

We have been very cautious about interacting with others. We try to fill our days with a combination of work (Jim working part time and Kathryn finalizing tests and grades at her last Utica College class, projects, exercise and play. Our projects have included: cutting firewood, planting 50 white spruce trees and 10 Elderberry bushes, starting garden plants, moving a daffodil bed, mowing the lawn – with a flat tire after 1 hour and refinishing a wooden stool that I inherited from my dad.

Kathryn has been doing the most exercise with a daily run using our lollipop xc ski trail to log a run of almost 3 miles every day. Jim’s jog is a much shorter 8/10s of a mile.

To keep us entertained we have played a modified pickleball in our garage, played various card games, held a virtual game night with family friends, watched an assortment of birds coming to our feeder and experimented with a trail camera.

Atrial Flutter

The end of October I had a cardiac ablation to cure my Atrial Fibrillation which was effective from January until the end of April when I developed a related Atrial Flutter.  In atrial flutter, one’s heart’s upper chambers beat too quickly. This causes the heart to beat in a fast, regular rhythm.  Atrial flutter is similar to atrial fibrillation however, the rhythm in the left upper chamber is more organized and less chaotic in atrial flutter than are the abnormal patterns common with atrial fibrillation

After 12 days of recurring Atrial Flutter I had a (successful, we hope) electrical cardioversion.  70 joules of electric current was used to reset the heart’s rhythm back to its regular pattern (normal sinus rhythm). I had a patch applied to my back which I assume was a “ground” and when I woke up I had a rectangular “brand” slightly smaller than a playing card evident on my chest and back. While electrical cardioversion is effective at converting the heart back into normal sinus rhythm, it has a low success rate in keeping it there.. When atrial fibrillation has been present for more than five years, success rates are only approximately 50%.  Keeping my fingers crossed and in addition to sustaining from alcohol I have now added caffeine to the list.

We Saw Painter!

Barb and Joe gave us Painter in May of 2008; 12 years ago. We kept him all summer and winter feeding him primarily fish worms until he was fat. We released him in the pond by our house the summer of 2009. Last fall we (or honestly Cullen) found Painter on the lawn and we returned her (we think Painter is a she). The picture was taken when we released her last September.

Yesterday Kathryn and I were planting Elderberries on the bank of the pond when we paused to look for fish cruising in the pond. I saw one large catfish, but even better we spied Painter swimming. She looked graceful – like a big green sea turtle. I read that Painted Turtles can have a life expectancy of 25-30 years – very cool, eh?
We put the tree planting shovel to good use yesterday planting 10 Elderberry bushes and 50 white spruce trees. The planting shovel is ideal because it has a narrower blade than a regular shovel and that’s important because we are planting in very rocky ground and the fewer rocks encountered the better. We have been planting trees for many years – the large spruce trees on the west side of the house were planted by Ed and I and are now 30+ feet tall. But I think we are running out of places to put additional trees. Most of the plantings this year were replacement trees for previous plantings that failed.

Obituary for Dr. Charles Joseph Waring

Dr. Charles Joseph Waring was born in Ballston Spa, NY, on September 11, 1933, to Charles Raymond and Aileen (Shaeffer) Waring. He passed away peacefully at the age of 86 from natural causes at the Daughters of Sarah Nursing Center in Albany, NY, on April 13, 2020.
He graduated from Saratoga Springs High School in 1951. He proudly served as a medic in the United States Army, in France, before earning his BS in Geology from Harpur College of Binghamton University. Following a year of additional study at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, he returned to New York in 1961 and began his teaching career as a high school science teacher in Schoharie Central School. In 1965, he was awarded a Master of Science in Education from The State University of New York in Oneonta. In 1966, he began a 25-year teaching career as a professor in the physical science department of Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in Glassboro, NJ. During his tenure there, he earned his Doctor of Education from The University of South Carolina. Also, he was a
founding member of the New Jersey Marine Consortium.
After his retirement, he moved back to New York and married Barbara Muller (Waring). He later became active in volunteering as a member of the Duanesburg Ambulance Corps. in Duanesburg, NY, and as a guide for the Aviation Museum in Saratoga Springs, NY. 
He is predeceased by his brothers, Douglas and Winston Waring. Surviving are his wife, Barbara Waring, of 28 years, his sisters, A. Patricia Kohn, and Nancie Tyler, and sister-in-law, Judy Waring. Also, he leaves behind 3 sons, Charles Cabot Waring (Stacey) and their children Andrew and Melissa; Clayton (Linda) and their daughter Lydia; and Christian and his sons,
Christian and Nathan. He is also survived by Lodema DuBois Jenkins, the mother of his children, as well as several beloved nieces and nephews. 
A private graveside ceremony for family only will be held at Greenridge Cemetery in Saratoga Springs, NY. In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests that a donation be made to the Nature Conservancy at www.nature.org. Arrangements under the direction of the Tunison Funeral 105 Lake Ave. Saratoga Springs NY 12866. Online remembrances can be made at www.tunisonfuneralhome.com

Trillium and Cardinals

We have several cardinals feeding during the winter and this spring we had a female cardinal attacking her reflection in our windows. Despite the cold weather we put screens on our windows and patio doors in an attempt to reduce the number of reflections.

Also depicted are my initial seed beds and the first trillium of the spring.

Isolation Activities

During our lock down we have mixed work responsibilities with increased TV time, work out routines and home projects. Our home projects include:

  • Painting Eric’s bedroom
  • Took chains off tractor and unhooked snowblower (never used this winter)
  • Cleared painting supplies and hardware from basement shelving, cleaned and re-stocked
  • Started 43 garden seeds: 4 varieties of tomatoes (Roma, Early Girl, Heritage cherry and regular), broccoli, artichoke, watermelon, egg plant
  • Waterproofed raincoats
  • Eric held a telecon with Hilbert College Forensic Science / CSI faculty
  • We had a video conference with Hilbert admissions to discuss acceptance criteria
  • Got the basketball hoop up and played a couple game of horse
  • Changed the water in the hot tub
  • Cut firewood from fallen fence line ash tree
  • Took a run – 1st in years
  • Tick-proofed a subset of clothing we wear for wood cutting or trail hikes

Finish to Eric’s Painting Project

For the past week of isolation Eric Muller (17) has been painting his bedroom with a theme of his favorite NBA basketball team – The Phoenix Suns. This entailed white ceiling paint and multiple colors on the walls: gray, purple and orange. Additionally LED lighting and a Fathead logo decorated the walls. Multiple images show more of the visual impact one encounters upon entering the room. Today we move his furniture back.

Impact of Corona Virus

We are pretty much social isolating.   “NYS on Pause” is, I think, the official term.  Basically everything but “essential services” has been ordered closed.  People are told they should stay home, which is what we are doing. Jim is working from home,  even though technically he was deemed “essential”.  He went camping the other night with his nephew, Matt.  We figured it was a relatively safe outdoor activity, and indeed they saw very few people.  Kathryn’s brother Tom (living south of Seattle), however, said he went hiking and the trail was packed; since their dog doesn’t do well with a lot of people, they went home.

Eric says he misses school.  He is on Playstation a lot, though the other night he volunteered to play Scrabble (which is probably a sign of his boredom).  Before everything shut down, we went and got paint so he is painting his room Phoenix Suns colors – one wall grey, one orange, one purple and one half orange/half purple with a large Fathead logo on the grey wall.  Sometimes I think we are the easiest parents in the world.

This has all hit pretty hard, activity-wise. Kathryn had FOUR volleyball tournaments scheduled for March, all canceled. All our regular activities – swimming, pickleball, volleyball, the gym, heck even the Beginner’s Agility class that Cullen and Kathryn were taking! – canceled. 

Utica College has suspended all on-ground classes so Kathryn ended my teaching career putting stupid stuff online.  Ugh.  Last Friday she was told she could no longer see clients in person and since she didn’t want to make the leap to “teletherapy” for the few remaining weeks, she called all my clients and told them she was transferring them immediately.  Fortunately she had told them all she was retiring.  Not what you would call  a textbook case of “processing the termination therapeutically.”  So she felt she was just fading out of my career of 41 years – “Irish Exit.” Jim says, seeing Kathryn not be able to do all the things planned to do upon retirement, he is glad he is still working some. However, we have all this land around us that we can walk.  The birds are singing, the deer are out and about, the porcupines, skunks, squirrels are around.  Very nice.  We had pretty nice weather up to today, but it is blowing and snowing today.  The daffodils have poked up but they look pretty pathetic in the sea of white. 

We are pretty well stocked as we tend to buy in bulk anyway, so we are not concerned at this point about running out of toilet paper. Kathyrn went to the grocery store this morning. Took all precautions. It was decidedly Not Fun. Got most of what we wanted; interesting what we couldn’t get: carrots; canned spaghetti (for the teenager), bread mixes. Hoping not to have to go back for several weeks.

Painting Eric’s Bedroom

During the outage caused by the shelter in place Eric decided to paint his bedroom. You can check their site and get the best painters. It was last painted by Billie Jo and her high school boy friend – some 20 years ago.  Eric has a theme based on the Phoenix Suns basketball team. We bought orange, purple, and light grey paint for the walls and bright white for the ceiling.  The one wall with the light grey will also have a Fathead Phoenix Suns logo on it.  We ordered the logo (~$70) online last Saturday afternoon.  On Monday morning the company announced a 30% discount on all items as their way to respond to the virus.  Ouch.  So I wrote them an email and said my son was out of school for three weeks and undertaking this bedroom refurbishing and we missed the discount by less than 24 business hours and was there anything they could do to make me feel better as a customer.  They responded and said they would apply the 30% discount to our order.

Overnight Camping at Thomas H Burbine Forest

Burbine Forest (42.81569, -74.38742) is approximately 330-acres located on Pond Road, just off of Corbin Hill Road, Sprakers in the township of Charleston. During the great depression, many farmlands were abandoned and reverted back to state ownership.  Often these lands were reforested by the Civilian Conservation Corps and are now state forests. In 1930, Montgomery County purchased the piece of land from the Fort Plain Bank to create a County forest. The forest contains numerous tree species such as oaks, maples and pines, ample wildlife and a wetland. Thomas H. Burbine Nature Loop is a 1 mile loop trail located that features beautiful wild flowers and is good for all skill levels. The trail portion was partially created as an Eagle Scout project.

With everyone locked down due to the Corona virus and clear weather with temperatures in the high 30s; Matt and Jim visited the forest and camped overnight. During the night we were visited by loudest Barred Owl I have ever heard. He must have been in the trees just above our tents. Temperatures overnight dropped to 18 degrees and created frost everywhere. We arose at 6:30am, packed up and headed home.