Windows! Glass ones that you can see through.

The minute my mom moved in with us she insisted that we upgrade some things to our very old home. One of the biggest problems we have is the window situation. It was so cold last winter, that I was forced to take bubble wrap, spray my windows with water and stick my bubble wrap to the window to help keep the constant cold breeze from entering our house. It wasn't just the glass. With large winds you could feel air pushing through the frames. The window situation became worse this summer.

The hubster went up to our bedroom after hearing a large thump. Low and Behold our window was sitting on the ground. I have never seen anything like it. The whole bottom sash of the window just plopped out of the frame. The same window shattered just a few weeks ago. The plastic on the windows have started to break off... the handles, the locks... it's a complete mess. Not to mention that I can't see out of the them... the seal broke between the double glass where the gas once was and there is condensation, so it's blurry glass every morning with a touch of frozen ice in the winter. These windows suck.

We took my moms advise and started to call around for free estimates. Along with a free estimate a sales person comes to your house and then forces you to sit at your dining room table for 2-4 hours and educates you about every aspect of the window that they sale. I felt like I was back in design school.... listening to glass ratings, gas's that are in the window, the insulation factors, the plastic they use, a heat lamp was pulled out with a heat meter to show how the glass keeps heat from passing through.... it was all.... overwhelming, and I soon was badgering the poor salespeople to "just give us a price!"

Windows... cost about $500 a window. We needed 19 of them. Talk about a hole in the wallet. My mother thankfully stepped up and helped us out. We don't have thousands of dollars hanging around at the moment.

Last night a sales agent came over for our second interview. A young man of 28, was a father of a two year old, and was constantly distracted from our weird collections of artifacts, and our children. He stayed till 11 pm, and finally we just signed the contract and hopefully found a local to be friends with. Bonus.

I never noticed windows before this... I never realized how critical they were till our windows started to turn into a nightmare. I was raised in a house that had wooden heavy windows with a storm window. You could never trust them to stay up, there was a board or book somewhere to hold them up so you didn't smash your neck or hands as you leaned out to throw water balloons full of paint and pee at the neighbors kids. (I was a lovely child)

Now, the windows that we just spent a small fortune on will stay up, have a screen in them that you can poke holes in and magically fix with a quick rub of the finger, they have child locks on them that keep the windows from opening completely, they can even stop a missile AND an atomic bomb. Well maybe not.... but they should seeing as they are like the Bentley of Windows.

Being a home owner is an adventure. One thing always leads to the next. Instead of a vacation to Disney World, we got windows. Whoopie!

No Donald Duck this year, but at least I won't have windows flying at me during every storm.

Next, is insulation in the crawl space to keep the cold air from blowing up through our floors, and then a new heating and cooling system, and then a new driveway, and then a Tiffany & Co. diamond bracelet, and maybe a new BMW convertible, and then I'm going to grow wings and fly myself to Italy.

It's all a dream, a marvelous dream, that with patience and timing, and lots of hard work will... come true. Even the wings. If they can make artificial hearts, they can make wings, and I'm the first one in line.

Homestead Renovations

Rave (left) Ellie (right) Appreciating me... because I am the best horse mom ever. 

What a great weekend for getting things done. My mom babysat Watts for Friday and Saturday night so the hubster and I used it to our advantage to really get some things done around the homestead. We needed to fix the footing in the run in shed for the horses.

James in the tall grass before mowing.

The hubster went and had 4 yards of gravel delivered to our house. In our driveway. The run in shed is about 4000 feet away. The hubster put a tarp in the bed of the truck and manually shoveled gravel into it and then I would let him through the gate into the field and he would back up the run in shed and the both of us would pull the tarp into the run in shed and spread the gravel. It was not an easy job.

 After about 5 loads we had some decent footing. The hubster then spread the rest out in our driveway to make it look like a real driveway instead of a patch of dirt to park the cars. Every time I went out to check on him his only comments were "I hate rocks, I never want to see a rock again, this is really hard, and I don't mind manual labor"

 While he was spreading and hauling rocks I had James strapped to the front of me in the baby bijorn and mowed the tall grass in the horse field. James loved it, and I loved it too because I was killing two birds with one stone. The horse field looked like Kentucky blue grass by the time I was done running down the weeds and tall grass.

After that we piled into the truck and went shopping for my wedding anniversary gift. Four stall mats, a 6' gate and two posts. We put the stall mats over the stone in the run in shed, and are going to install the gate from our property to the horse field. Currently, I just cut the wire fence and am holding it in place with bungee cords. It's embarrassing.

I also had the horse dentist come out to float Ellie's teeth. It's an interesting process. The dentist has files that fit over the back teeth and he files them down so that they grind evenly. It looks barbaric, but Ellie just stood there on a loose lead rope while he did it. I was amazed... I think she actually appreciated it. Meanwhile, Pony Raven was going into the dentist bucket and pulling out tools for him to use. She wanted to help, and was two inches from Ellie's face the whole time.

Last night I was outside and the hubster noticed an animal sitting in the dark.. a calico kitten.... I called for her to come up and eat some food. She was wild but gradually came up to eat, and then let me pet her. She was skin and bone and maybe about 6 months old. An ugly cat, but very sweet.

This morning when I went out to feed the horses she was hiding in the bushes. I called her over and she came scampering up to eat and again came for some love scratches. Am I becoming a cat lady? On top of this we have taken in one of my moms cats... Wicker. We don't let her in the house because she is notorious for hacking up hair balls, pooping and peeing in the house. She is very happy to be here though and sleeps on our porch. She was not thrilled to be sharing with "Kit" as I have named her. Short for Kitten.  She hisses at her, but then lets her eat.

Oh my I have so much news..... So then, we have decided to go to England for a week in September for my Uncle Johns 80th birthday. It's a big deal, and may be the last time that my huge family will all be together again. We booked the tickets for the hubster, my mom, James, Watts, and myself to go. It is going to be a problem because I need someone to look after the homestead while we are away. I need someone to feed the horses, chickens, cats, and look after my koi. I put an ad on Craigslist for a farm sitter, and I found a few people that were interested. So problem solved!

Things are working out it seems. We have also been busy moving my mother out of her house of 42 years. It's been very stressful. The dump guy is coming today to take away all the unwanted stuff and then on Thursday the moving guys are coming to move things into storage. So by the end of the month my mom will be officially living here until we find her a new perfect and even better place to live.

I'm looking forward to the end on the move. It's really sad on one hand... the house is in shambles, everything is everywhere, and it is proving hard to put emotions on the back burner. It is a beautiful house, and now that most of the stuff is gone you can really see the bones of the architecture and then all the memories come flooding back to what it used to look like and all the Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving feasts, and birthday parties I had... floating around like a ghost memory.

The only thing that gets me through it the thought that I can find a place that is up to date, with central air, with new appliances, and a landlord that will take care of the house that my mom will move into. She can start fresh with no more stress.

I also won't have to drive an hour to see my mom. She will be right here... no more phone calls every morning, no more worrying about what she's eating, no more concern over helping to upkeep a yard. She will be here, and that's how I want it.

Everything is great right now... my animals are happy and healthy. My family is happy and healthy... and I am happy because everything is running like a well oiled machine. Things are great... for now.

We have a ton of butterflies. All I can think of when I see butterflies is "CHANGE" can be a great thing. 

Water- is taken for granted.

 I saw on the news this morning that there is a whole town without water. A 50' water main broke, and the only way to fix it was to shut off the main supply to thousands of people. They went around interviewing the people that will be affected. They will be without water for a few days up to a week.

People that work in restaurants will have no work, and go a week without pay... businesses are losing a ton of money. People were filling up their bathtubs and pots.... bottles of water are sold out.

Now how does this all work? How will people use toilets? How will babies get water for their formula. If they had livestock, what will the animals drink? A Civil Engineer came on to say that people should think about the pipes underground, they wont last forever and will all need to be replaced, and soon we should all be ready for this to happen at one point or another. It is considered to be as bad as a natural disaster.

I think it's really pathetic that we have set ourselves up to rely so heavily on water supply presented to us in this way. I thought about what we would do if this happened to us here on the homestead. I think we would be fine, seeing as we live with a large creek the size of a lake in our backyard. I would just need to figure out how to filter it for drinking and transporting it without the use of electricity.

My brother owns a cabin up in the Adirondacks that has no running water or electricity. It takes some time to get used to not turning the taps for the sink, or flicking the light switch. It takes about two days to acclimate to the loss of luxuries. We have a large plastic 10 gallon tank that we fill up with water, and then we get a few gallons of drinking water bottles that we put over the sink. When it rains we put pots of water outside to collect water and use it to wash dishes. There is also a natural stream that forms at the bottom of the hill after it rains that I personally go and bath in, with all natural soap. It soon becomes second nature. We use too much water, and once it's taken from you it's amazing how you can make one gallon last a whole day for bathing, cooking, drinking, and washing.

Anyway, when it comes to this stuff, it almost brings me some sort of sick solace that I will be just fine when this happens. I have done it with ease.... I can live without water supply and electricity. I can even build a fire with wet wood, I can climb a mountain with a good 50 pounds on my back, I can build a waterproof and windproof hut out of sticks and rocks, I can even rock climb, even though I hate it with a passion. These skills were all learned in the Adirondacks over the summers. I think it's important to live like this for a week so it isn't a shock to the system, when say all of a sudden a water main breaks.

I really hope my boys grow up to be rugged mountain men that can tough it out and fight a bull if they need to. I love camping, I'm sure it's not fun when it becomes permanent, but I'm ready for the challenge.