After the vandalism, the rest of September

September                                                                      Most Recent Posts:
Greenfield Mountain Farm                                        Black Tuesday Vandalism
Virginia                                                                  Leaving Vermont Headed South

Thank goodness for the beauty of the farm which is calming especially on foggy mornings..

I spent most of the month dealing with the vandalism I reported in my previous blog (link above).

Because this is a glass claim, the insurance company does not assign an adjustor so all the calls have to be done by the policy holder.  That would be calls to Geico where you get a different person every time you call, calls to Safelite Glass and to Duncan Glass.  All in an effort just to get the windows ordered so they can be built.  I spent time every single day on the phone about this matter and trying to get all three arms to work together.  Frustrating does not even begin to describe it.

The only bright spot came in the middle of the month when Carrie, Colin and Celia came for a visit.

   I’m not sure how much longer Colin will be using his mommy’s wooden high chair.  He turned 3 on September 1st and we are celebrating his birthday this week end.

Carrie plays the piano and the flute but here she takes her hand at my recorder

Celia took a shine to her mother’s Cabbage Patch dolls from the mid 1980’s.

Not sure if this was playing tag or what but Colin is definitely an outdoor guy.

We walked out the farm lane to the mailbox.  At points along the way we lost Colin who had stopped to do something with a stick or a rock or ?????   One way to prod him along was to race.  Of course it is more fun if he wins.

It’s so wonderful for me to see Carrie with her own children here at the farm where she was born and raised.

It’s always wonderful coming back from walking to the mailbox when we come out of the woods, into the valley and there sits the farmhouse on its knoll.

Hardly any color here yet in mid September.

On Sunday, there was lots of work and play to be done  outside with a wheelbarrow before we got dressed in our fancy duds to go to David’s sister Robin’s daughter’s celebration of marriage.  (get all that?)

Ashley and her husband Tanner had all their marriage plans and reservations cancelled by the closing of their venue during covid last year.  When it was clear it couldn’t just be postponed  they had a VERY small ceremony and this gathering was to be with all those who had been invited to the original wedding. 

Somehow neither I nor Carrie got pictures of the 4 of us all dressed up but Carrie did take this one of Celia and I walking up to the gathering.

There was a formal acknowledgement of the marriage where finally Ashley got to wear her wedding dress for us all.

And a lovely dinner and dancing afterwards.  This was as quiet as Colin was the entire night.  It was not an occasion for a 3 year old.

Next morning Colin got to open his presents but he’s such a whirlwind that every single picture I have of him is a blur.  This is the best one.

More birthday debris although the birthday boy is no where to be seen only his bean bag toss.

The rest of the month was more attempts to get the RV repair show on the road amid enjoying my closest neighbors and the beauty of the farm.

Looking out the window one morning I saw a group of them down on the farm lane.

They were in no hurry as they wandered around, across the lane and eventually through the gate, the field and down into the woods.

Once they hit the tall grasses, you can hardly see them.  Fields will be mowed soon.

I closed out September with a visit to my favorite local hiking spot, the Ivy Creek Natural Area.  I’ve written about it at some point every year since I began this blog so I won’t go through the history of this farm turned natural area again.

Several of its 11 trails are along the creek.

Others wind through rhododendron and mountain laurel thickets which sadly of course are not in bloom in September.

Areas not along the creek or through the thickets were lovely paths through the beautiful woods where I saw much of Nature’s artwork.

I’ll close this post with some of what I saw.

It’s difficult to tell just how big this fungi was in the first picture so I put my hand on the tall stem.

Dinner plate.

Such amazing intricacy even from a distance.  But up close is even more striking.

On the other hand, these beauties are tiny.  I’d might never notice them without their striking iridescent color.

Sorry I wasn’t here to see the exploding of this puffball mushroom

What’s it remind you of??

More log art.

It has definitely been a good day for a variety of fungi and beauty in the woods.

Black Tuesday Vandalism

Tuesday September 7th, 2021                            Most Recent Posts:
Charlottesville Virginia                                    Leaving Vermont, Headed South
                                          Inside and Back Outside the Bennington Museum
                                                                                  

On Tuesday evening, September 7th, only 4 days after I returned to Virginia, at approximately 9:30 pm Winnona was parked in her usual place in Charlottesville Virginia when two cars drove down the quiet side street and shot out the windows of two vehicles on her side of the road including 4 in Winnona.  It appears to have been BBs.  All the windows in this picture  were damaged.

As you can see there were multiple shots into the dining and living room windows.

A closer look shows the glass was completely shattered but as it is safety glass, it didn’t fall out in little shards like the driver’s roll up window did.

Here’s how it looked when I went in and discovered it the next morning.  I hadn’t heard the shots and a neighbor told me the next day that she’d been outside in her backyard when she heard the popping and walked around to the front in time to see two cars speeding away around the corner.

Initially the driver’s window looked like this but in a short time, it looked like the second picture as the pieces of glass fell out all over the street and the driver’s seat and floor.

A later view before the entire driver’s window fell out.  The triangular window also fell out all over the ground but the inside pane held.

The police were called.  They took a report but they haven’t done anything that I know of in the nearly 3 months since this happened.  Pictures of the cars did show up on the home cameras of people on another street nearby where they were also shooting at cars. 

My friends Mary and Penny helped me put black plastic secured with masking tape over the entire mess in order to keep out the rain. 

My insurance, Geico, wouldn’t do anything.  They don’t send adjusters on glass claims and none of the auto glass drive up and replace it people can do RVs.

It has been an absolute nightmare.  It took constant hounding and THREE WEEKS for Geico to even get the replacement windows approved for ORDERING.  First they sent me to Safe T Glass who sent me to Duncan Glass in Indiana.  I had to do all the phoning and arranging to get the windows order.  Geico was NO HELP at all.  They don’t send a claims agent out for glass claims and apparently don’t care a whit that this was more than the usual car window problem.  So I had to do everything.  I intend to look for other insurance so if you like yours and they’ve done a good job for you on a claim, PLEASE tell me who you have.

Shelli and Stephanie at Duncan Glass were as helpful as they could possibly be given the difficulty of dealing with Geico so I would absolutely recommend them.  At least with Duncan I always spoke to the same person.  I was calling Geico daily and harrassing them and always had to wait on hold forever and talk to a different person each time.  Of course that person had to hear the entire story, pull up the file, read the notes and say there was nothing they could do to speed up the process so I could be repaired by November 1 and leave for Florida to make my camping reservations on time.

I know, I know, supply chain problems but 3 weeks just to get them ordered??   I haven’t been in Virginia this late in the year for over 10 years.   Not a happy camper here

To date I have had to cancel 7 weeks of the very difficult to get Florida State Park Reservations and am still in Virginia where it is freezing, literally.

The windows finally came in yesterday nearly 14 weeks after the vandalism.  BUT the installer which the insurance company sent me to is 70 miles south and has a drive which is at nearly a 45 degree angle and Winnona bottomed out going in and did damage to the passenger rear and its compartment.  Of course he claims no responsibility and the insurance company says it’s my problem.  So now I have two claims in 3 months, neither of which were my fault and  which will of course cause my premium to soar. perhaps result in a cancellation of the insurance and seriously affect my ability to change insurance companies.

My out of pocket costs for this are approaching $1000 and it isn’t nearly over.

I had taken the RV to the recommended installer who was to do the two driver’s area windows earlier in the week.  But he informed me when I called to find out whether he was finished that yes he was but he couldn’t do the roll up window after all.  The insurance company now tells me that this window is no longer available and they know of no one who can replace it.  So what do I do now? 

To date, the only window that has been replaced is the triangular wing window  by the driver’s seat.  I put a piece of plexiglas over the roll up window so I could drive the RV to the installer.

I have requested that the two living area windows be resent to the RV repair I normally use when in Ashland Virginia, another 70 miles east,  whose quote had an hourly labor charge higher than Geico would pay which is why I went with their recommendation, but no longer. I do not trust him.  Problem is that my shop can’t get me in until mid to late January which means more cancellation fees and more cold weather.  Also they cannot fix the roll up window as they do not “create glass windows” they only install.

Damage to bin

I am VERY ANGRY that the perpetrators of this vandalism have no responsibility and will pay no penalty at all for everything I’ve had to go through as a result of their actions.  And angry at the police who are not finding them or controlling this sort of vandalism.   Charlottesville has always been a sweet quiet college town but it seems that ever since the infamous unite the right rally here in 2017, violence of many types is on the increase. 

It was always easier to leave Winnona in Charlottesville on this formerly safe and quiet little side street rather than take her out to the farm down the narrow curving mountain roads.  We have done this for the past 9 years but I have bought a 30 amp plug and box and am having electricity put out there so she will no longer be in what I’m sadly beginning to feel is a dangerous town.

If any of you have any suggestions/advice about how I might get this driver’s roll up window replaced please please let me know.  Made in 2004, Winnona is an “older” RV now but she still has a lot of life left in her and I don’t want this vandalism to be the end of RVing for me.