Pregnant paws (March 12)

Whenever we travel we are never far out of touch. I checked email at an Internet café just up the street from the Holiday Inn once a day. I mentioned earlier that our neighbor Donna agreed to watch our horse Cairo, dog Lady and cat Tiger while we visited Spain. Donna’s Thoroughbred bred mare Bentley has been Cairo’s stable mate since he came to the Auld Macdonald Farm in December. Donna’s Quarter horses Beau and Bonnie, a gelding and mare respectively, have visited our pasture to eat its long grass. In January Donna learned that Bonnie, a horse she bought at auction in August 2005 was pregnant. So when I read the subject line of Donna’s email – Things are multiplying in Maple Ridge – (Maple Ridge is the township we live in), I thought, “Oh, Bonnie had her foal.” HA.

Donna was writing to tell me that our dog Lady, the one I’d just taken to the vet in February to cure from Lyme disease and Heartworm, was pregnant and due soon! WHAT?? So we got this dog sick and pregnant? Gee whiz.

The sire is Lady’s former roommate, Paxton, who is a year-old 120 pound Rottweiler. Lady is maybe 55 pounds.

I have not dealt with a dog of mine with puppies since I was 14. This should be fun, and who doesn’t love puppies?

Mind you, I read this email in the midst of French-speaking young people who looked at me very curiously when I kept reading aloud, laughing, shaking my head and clasping hands over my mouth! Puppies!

March 10-12 Montpellier Weekend

I’ve only been to Montpellier once and that was only to its train station. Shortly after we met Ian and I rendezvoused there (he was living in Grenoble and I in Barcelona) and we spent a romantic weekend at a friend's village house in Castelnau d’Aude in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

The drive from Barcelona is three hours and sections of the freeway just into France near Fitou are extremely windy. Montpellier is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France. It sits on hilly ground six miles inland from the Mediterranean coast. It has a large and long established university. At its center is the Place de la Comédie, which is a pedestrian zone with parking garages underneath. A public tram also serves this area.

We parked underneath the Place de la Comédie and walked three blocks to the Holiday Inn. The room was nice, but it seemed odd to me that it did not have a telephone in the room. I almost never use a telephone in a hotel room, even though I speak enough French (or Spanish) to be understood, I usually opt for the reception or concierge staff. I always related great showers with hotel rooms in France. More often than not they use fixtures manufactured by Grohe, which really are good products.

Like many European cities Montpellier is a city that is best enjoyed by walking. It was a bit chillier than Spain, but nothing that a fleece jacket couldn’t handle. We had breakfast at an open-air café of baguettes, butter, jam, milk, tea and coffee. We wandered through the downtown streets and into a church or two; French church doors are almost always unlocked. We found a farmer’s market set up under a massive and ancient aqueduct. I always loved these markets with everything so very fragrant and colorful.

We drove to Narbonne for lunch, which is served so much earlier than in Spain, At 2 pm when most Spaniards are beginning to sit down, the French restaurateur is washing lunch dishes and thinking about preparing the supper menu. When in France I hanker for the warm goat cheese salad. Being in Languedoc I want to accompany that salad with Fitou, which is a young red wine grown in and around the city of the same name near the Spanish border.

For sentimental reasons and because it is near CDD, a wonderful discount wine depot in Lezignan Corbieres, we also drove to Castelnau d’Aude. At CDD we bought a case of Fitou, two bottles of Blanquette (basically a Champagne but produced in this region) and two rounds of goat cheese coated in ground peppercorns. When we lived in Spain we often made the wine run to CDD and clinked home across the border. It was hard for me to buy so little at such a great place.

To me Castelnau D’Aude is always quite picturesque, no matter the time of year. We drove through and didn’t see a soul. It was a blustery day, but with some fruit trees beginning to bloom there were promises of spring.

In Montpellier we had dinner at L’Entrecote steak house on night and a Chinese restaurant across from the hotel the next. Both were good experiences albeit very different.

On our way back to Spain we decided to turn off at the Fitou exit and see what was there. At first it didn’t look very charming, in fact there was so much new construction I wondered whether or not they had bulldozed the old town. However, we finally saw sign for centre ville (city center) and found the familiar close cut winding streets. We also happened upon an auberge, which are best described as small country hotels with meals although more substantial than a B&B. This one was called Auberge Vidal. It sits atop a steep hill, one that had us spinning car wheels and making more than one attempt to reach its parking lot.

The man who greeted us, who I can only assume was Vidal, was a friendly broken English speaking man who apologized profusely for not having seats in the jam-packed great room and showed us to a quickly set table off a sun drenched patio. Lunch was a largely seafood buffet (the raw oysters were great), several vegetables, including my favorite French green beans, all sloshed down with the vin de maison (house wine), Fitou, of course.

Working visit to Spain March 4-13

Returning to Spain is always lovely. We stayed with my son Michael and his wife Natalia at their apartment in the Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona. Ian and I slept in their guest bedroom, which has a single bed. Wow, do I love my husband! He is wonderful to snuggle up to. LOL

We rented a car and drove two hours to Riumar, where we own two 3-bedroom side-by-side chalets. The weather was short-sleeve- a treat after Minnesota weather. It seemed like no one was in town. Normally our German neighbors are there and we get to see one of the other year-round residents, but not so this time.

Ian and I specifically came to Spain to help ready the chalets for the summer rental season. Last year we offered guests Internet connection but decided we would not do that this year, so we packed up all of those components. We also set up one bedroom closet in each chalet as a secure maid’s closet. We’ve found that guests rarely unpack completely so the closets go unused. We needed a place that our changeover lady Lisa could access for clean sheets, towels and supplies and the one closet in each chalet seemed the best idea.

Because we wanted to spend as much time as we could with Michael and Natalia in Barcelona we decided we would only be in Riumar just long enough to do this work. We ate twice at our favorite restaurant Casa Nuri, but sadly did not take the time to stroll the beach.

On Saturday Ian and I drove to Sitges and reunited with three women I served with as president of the Barcelona Women’s Network. Two of us have repatriated to the US and two still live in Spain; one in Sitges, one in Sant Cugat. When we met we hugged, which is not very European who tend to check kiss. It felt very nice to express our greetings this way, but admittedly this is much more “American.”

Michael and Natalia suggested a wonderful Argentinean restaurant that specializes in beef. Wow, was it great. Los Asadores is certainly worth the trip. We walked there from their place and really enjoyed our evening together. The food portions were just right – fist size versus the heaping serving we often get in the States. The steaks were prepared rare and came sizzling to the table served in round wooden cutting boards. No A1 or Heinz 57 Steak Sauce and none were needed. I seem to remember we paid around €140.

Because our time was so short we decided to take a mini-vacation and cross the border into France.

Bon viatges

We are going to visit Spain from March 5-14! We are flying Minneapolis to Chicago then to New York’s JFK and then Transatlantic to Barcelona. When we come back we will stay overnight at the O'Hare Hilton in Chicago before coming home on the afternoon of the 14th.

In Barcelona we will stay with my oldest son Michael and his wife Natalia. We will also visit Riumar for two or three days to do some repairs to our chalets before the summer rental season. We bought eight twin sheet sets from Target and will leave those for use in the chalets. It will be nice to be there. I am hoping for some warm, sunny days.

Most of all I want our time there to be productive – in getting work done and to visit the people we want to see there.

It is possible we will also need to go to Madrid to move Ian’s immigration papers forward. It will be interesting to see if I can once again note the things that make the two cultures different and what I like about each.

Our neighbor Donna has generously agreed to watch the menagerie while we are gone.

Only love makes the tail wag

Last week Lady was to be spay. I took her to the vet’s office at 8 a.m. Thursday morning. She is around two years old and has not had any vaccinations. I asked that she be given everything to bring her up-to-date (rabies, distemper, etc.) and that she be checked for Heartworm and Lyme Disease; one is transmitted by infected mosquitoes, the latter by the bite of an infected tick. I left Lady in their capable hands thinking I would pick her up around 4:30 that afternoon.

About an hour after I left the vet called my cell phone to say that Lady’s pre-op Heartworm and Lyme Disease tests had come back positive! This meant Lady could not undergo surgery because she Heartwork makes her a high-risk under anesthesia. Although easily prevented by a monthly chewable tablet called Heartguard Plus (for dogs and cats), once Heartworms are contracted they must be killed with injections containing small doses of strychnine. She got two injections 24 hours apart and is now on six weeks of rest, meaning she cannot go out of the house without a leash and she must walk not run at all times so as not to overexert her cardiopulmonary system. This is because the strychnine kills the worms that live in her heart and their dead bodies break up and are passed through her lungs as they exit the body.

According to some on-line sites: "Lyme Disease is named after the city in which it was first discovered, Old Lyme, Connecticut. Humans also get Lyme disease; however they do not get it directly from dogs. We get it from being bitten by the same ticks that transmit it to dogs. Preventing exposure to ticks is important for humans and our dogs.

"Many dogs affected with Lyme Disease are taken to a veterinarian because they seem to be experiencing generalized pain and have stopped eating. Affected dogs have been described as if they were "walking on eggshells." Often these animals have high fevers.

"Dogs may also become lame because of the disease. This painful lameness often appears suddenly and may shift from one leg to another. If untreated, it may eventually disappear, only to recur weeks or months later."

This lameness is what Lady is dealing with now. Yesterday she would not/could not move from her rug. She is better today, enough to accompany me for barn chores this morning and to relief herself in her usual spot in the yard. She gets 750 mg of Tetracycline twice daily for 30 days and 325 mg of aspirin as needed for pain.

Lady’s vet bill to treat the Lyme Diease and Heartworm was $400, which was a shocker considering I was expecting $280 for her to be spay and vaccinated. She is scheduled to be spay in late March and will receive all of her vaccinations then.

Tiger that cat needs to go in for a round of vaccinations and will be tested for Heartworm and Lyme Disease. He’s an indoor cat now, but was quite the mighty neighbor hunter in the years before he came to live with us. At least he is already neutered!

Acting his age

Today was a picture postcard crisp Minnesota winter day. Both Ian and I have been working with Cairo, our 20-month-old purebred Arabian stud colt, on his ground manners. He’s very good when being groomed. He stands quietly now when cross-tied and he is calmer about having his hooves picked up for cleaning. Generally, he and his stable mate the Thoroughbred mare Bentley are out in the pasture from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. In the afternoon we bring both in to their cleaned boxed stalls (they are side-by-side in 12 x 14 foot stalls) where they enjoy hay, water and a bucket of oats mixed with whole kernel corn.

This afternoon after grooming Cairo we decided to take him for a bit of a walking lesson in the driveway area in front of the barn. He can be a handful and he likes to test the handler. I would say since we brought Cairo home just before Christmas he has grown another hand (“a hand” equals four inches) to 14 hands and weighs a muscular 800 pounds. As an adult he could be as tall as 15 hands (5 feet even to his withers) and weigh 1000 pounds. Now is the time to instill manners and he’s come a long way since we got him.

Ian has never owned a horse, but has ridden for years and is a confident rider. He is more accustomed to English riding and says Western saddles are like comfy armchairs. Ian handles both Bentley and Cairo and both like to test him. Ian is strong, but the horses are stronger and sometimes they are very single minded. Ian takes direction very well from me and Cairo is learning quickly he cannot act up just because the lead rope has changed hands. Today Cairo pushed, pulled and even reared a bit with Ian, the little devil, but Ian gave him hell and Cairo snapped right back in line to stand and walk calmly on the lead. When a horse is acting up and can be put in its place quickly by nonviolent means (no whips or anything harmful) it’s a nice feeling of accomplishment. When Cairo tries to dominate the situation he is forced to back up several steps in quick succession. Backing up is work for a horse and they will quickly associate the undesirable behavior (e.g., nipping, crowding, rearing, etc.) with having to work. Behavior modification works!

In the weeks to come we will have our farrier, Chuck, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrier), who doubles as a horse trainer, come and give the three of us some lessons. These lessons and homework coupled with having him gelded in April will make Cairo more of a gentleman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geld).

Speaking of fixing animals, Lady is scheduled to be spay this Thursday. It is day surgery; in at 8, home at 5. She will also be given all her necessary shots and tests. I imagine Friday will be a lay about day for our sweet Labrador.

Reflections

On February third a long-time girlfriend’s mother died of pneumonia and complications with Parkinson’s. Janet Mary (nee Carlson) Johnson was 73. I’ve known her daughter Sandy since we met in Moby Dick’s bar in downtown Minneapolis in 1974. I remember visiting Sandy at her parent’s home many times and learning quickly there was always something sticky and sweet to be found in the kitchen’s bread drawer.

Jan and husband Jesse were characters who genuinely loved one another and were partners for the long haul through the rebellious-child parenting years and grandparenting years. I hadn’t seen Jan for years, but Jesse was right when he remarked at the open-casket wake on Thursday evening, “She looks like she’s sleeping.”

Yesterday’s funeral service was a beautiful tribute to Jan. Her Lutheran church in south Minneapolis was filled with people who knew and loved her. Family photos had been edited together onto a DVD along with a musical soundtrack that chronicled her life. Jan was known for her shelves of photo albums, a habit passed on to her daughters.

Jesse and Jan were married for 51 years and right through to laying her to rest Jesse gave her everything she ever wanted and needed. Bless both of them.

My heart ached during the service to see Sandy’s heart so obviously broken. The relationship between a mother and a daughter is a strong, complex bond. I find funerals to be sad and frightening, as I empathize with the bereaved and yet pray that I am not in those front pews anytime soon. Of course I will not be spared, nor will people who love me. However, believing there is something else – another existence - beyond this life takes the sting from those thoughts. Realizing, however, that we will not have our loved one with us in this life is the stuff for keening.

Friends and family are so important and we need to lean on each other in times like these. We should try to get together for occasions other than weddings and funerals.

Chilly drafts

We’ve been at the farm full time for 11 days (since January 26) and we are enjoying ourselves. The house is still a construction site but we have areas that are set up for our comfort -- the rest is a mess. We have our bed with its comfy bedding and oversized pillows, our office desks and chairs, laptops, printer/fax machine, satellite TV with DVD, wireless Internet connection (we do have to conduct paying work after all!), two stadium chairs from our roughing it weekend visits, assorted scatter rugs plus a makeshift kitchen that includes an electric self-cleaning range (stovetop and oven), washing machine, dryer and refrigerator. We are using the existing bathroom, which is our only source of household water. I wash dishes in a dishpan in the bathtub (I haven’t shampooed dishes by accident yet!) and I fill animal water bowls and coffeepots from the sink faucet.

A new well will be dug in the spring, which is good since the current water pressure is so-so; sometimes good, sometimes lousy. We try to time showers to the better pressure times. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the ebb and flow. We have a washer and dryer but the pressure is not good enough to run through the cycles, so we go into Cambridge (10 miles, about 15 minutes) with dirty laundry. This isn’t bad at all and things are done pretty quickly.

The weather is turning colder. It has been balmy compared to Minnesota winters I remember. The day we moved the temperatures were in the mid-40s! In a “normal” Minnesota winter there are usually 30 below-zero nights. During winter 2005, there were only 11; thus far in the 2005-2006 winter there have been only four. The weather predictions are for temps later this week to dip into the teens with stiff winds that should drive the wind chill temps even lower.

As I’ve written already, we are re-insulating this 100-year-old farmhouse and now most exterior walls are done. What we found is that cold air also seeps into the living room area (what will eventually be our master bedroom with en suite) through its tongue-n-groove wood floor. Today, we bought big pink two-inch thick sheets of Styrofoam-like insulation that Ian will custom cut and glue to the basement ceiling. There are areas of the basement that are not much more than crawlspaces and we will need to do something different in those areas. The idea is to find what works knowing that in the spring when we build the addition (a study, living room, dining room, three-season porch and three-car garage) we will have opportunities to make improvements to the existing basement by adding things like drain tile, waterproofing and insulation around the outside below-ground wall. The addition will have its own basement, one that will be finished off and used as a much needed storage area.

Ian has strung all the wiring along the kitchen walls. He also ran a heat duct from the furnace, up through the kitchen and into one of the upstairs bedrooms. Voila, heat! It will be a few mores weeks before the floor and walls are ready for ceramic tiling. However, once the ceramic is set the IKEA kitchen cabinets will be assembled, installed and the whole place will take on a much more finished look. Meanwhile, the sink and its faucet sit alongside the cabinet boxes waiting for that day.

We have our eye on some beautiful moss green marble countertops and backsplashes. We still need to select the gas stovetop and overhead extractor fan. We have decided on a refrigerator, a matching upright freezer and dishwasher and we will buy these when the kitchen nears completion. The refrigerator and range that came with the house (the ones we are using now) will then be donated to the local food shelf.

The living room area, where we work, lounge and sleep, is much warmer since being insulated and covered with the plastic vapor barrier. Yes, there are still drafts but we are identifying them and plugging each one by one. When the insulation and wiring is complete, we will begin hanging drywall.

Lady the lab and Tiger the orange tabby cat are getting along better. Tiger likes the convenience of Lady’s water dish and has been seen taking a drink while Lady nibbles at her chow. Lady is still a bit too enthusiastic for Tiger, and sometimes their interactions remind me of Garfield comics.

The horses Cairo and Bentley are good too. The days have been chillier but they like the sun and are often seen standing quietly sunbathing. Bentley the 17-year-old Thoroughbred mare has recovered fully from her bout with colic. Much to my chagrin, Cairo continues to nip. He finds this a great ongoing game, despite the fact that he gets reprimanded consistently. I’m told gelding Cairo, his own maturing and my continuing to be consistent with behavior modification will result in him not biting. Some days when we have gone back and forth and I am exhausted (thankfully, my heavy barn jacket protects me from his teeth) that no-nipping day seems a long way off. Ah, well, anyone can deal with a well-mannered horse. There are many times when he stands beautifully without incident and I revel.

Framing and insulating

To insulate the house (which currently has precious little) Ian builds a frame from 2 x 4 (inch) pine studs and then nails that frame to the original wall. This frame is built on to the exterior walls of the house only because it holds the insulation in place.

Ian drills holes in the pine studs (some at about knee height and others higher in the wall or centered on the ceiling) and runs electric cabling through and attaches blue plastic electrical boxes that will eventually hold the sockets, switches and ceiling light fixtures.

After the insulation is put in place the wall is covered ceiling to floor with a heavy gauge clear plastic known as a vapor barrier. The next step will be to install drywall. We did this in one of the upstairs bedrooms and it is not my favorite job. The upstairs rooms have lots of eaves and cutting the drywall is like cutting one's own puzzle pieces. I could not hang drywall and get paid for it. Ian however just gets after it and really loves doing this stuff. He's very precise and patient. For me it's fun to watch him take such pride in his handywork. He's so cool.

Tomorrow we begin framing the kitchen, which has only two external walls. The colder weather is heading this way and we want to be cozy. We heat with propane and plan to switch to corn stoves in the spring. The living room floor needs to be insulated from below, which means going into the scary basement and cutting styrofoam-like insulation into right-sized panels that are then glued to the basement ceiling, thus blocking the drafts. For the moment, slippers are in order!

Cat and dog

Yesterday, Tiger the cat met Lady the lab. Tiger wasn't too impressed and he's still giving Lady a lot of space. Lady does not chase or bark at Tiger (thank goodness). She wants to make friends, as she has with cats that live with her former owner. I think it will just take time. We continue to assure Tiger and hope that the socialization works for all concerned.

Lady is a two year old female black lab mix ... we think mixed with a Chesapeake Bay Spaniel (a popular local breed) because her coat has dark brown threads and she has a curly strip a hair along her back. Lady rarely barks and is very friendly to everyone, but this morning when the neighbor's dogs strolled toward to yard (as they regularly do) the hair on her back stood up and she let out a series of deep and serious sounding barks informing them there's a new dog in town!

In the coming weeks we'll take Lady to the vet for shots and to be spay.

On the farm

Yesterday we moved to the farm. Ian and Richard did the lion’s share of the moving furniture and boxes work at the Minneapolis apartment while I cleaned. It took us five hours from start to turning in the keys and garage door clicker to the management office. Ian drove the large U-Haul truck and I was in the Mazda, which my mom calls the yellow sunbeam. We were too pooped to begin unpacking last night, so the truck sits in the driveway waiting to be emptied. Luckily we are enjoying a spring-like warm spell with temperatures in the sunny mid and upper 40s F (low teens Celsius). Temperatures normally hover around zero or lower.

The renovation continues and we’re working on continuing to improve the exterior wall insulation. We also found a wallpaper remover gel that actually works to dissolve the paper and glue bits left on the wooden bead board ceilings in the living room and kitchen, which we hope to preserve. It’s nice to have something that lessens the overhead scraping work. I think now that we are truly here full time things will progress and come together more rapidly. I hope future postings bear this out.

Our high-speed wireless Internet will be connected today (YES), as will the second telephone line that will serve the office and its fax.

The vet comes to call

This morning we had a little excitement when I went to let Cairo and Bentley out to the pasture Bentley the 17-year-old Thoroughbred mare was laying down in her box stall and wouldn't get up. She looked tired and sweaty and was rolling in her stall. I put Cairo out fast and then ran to the house to call Donna. Bentley is our neighbor Donna's horse and she's keeping Cairo company as a stable mate. Donna came over and together we coaxed Bentley up and began to walk her in the barn's hallway. It is windy here today and she was sweating. Donna called the vet - a woman - who got here in 45 minutes from nearby North Branch. Ian brought a 5 gallon bucket of warm water so the vet could flush mineral oil and water through a tube in her hose into her gut to loosen things up. Bentley wasn't passing gas or pooping ... and we KNOW from cleaning her stall that she can poop .... so the vet said she had colic and also gave her two drugs via intravenous needle into her neck artery. The vet also performed a rectal exam that required her to wear a glove that went from fingertips to her shoulder. Bentley stood for all of it like a trooper. Bentley is a retired money-winning racehorse and has no doubt been through these types of exams before. I don't think I would have been so nice had I been the patient. Cairo was VERY concerned and in fact I brought him in while we waited for the vet to arrive. He was quiet and she wasn't so concerned about him neighing and running around outside like a nutball.

The vet said no grain for 24 hours and after trotting her for a good 20 minutes on a lunge line to "get things moving", she was to be kept inside. Cairo is in too and is being very solicitous.

Donna asked the vet to exam Bonnie, her chubby quarter horse mare too. Bonnie is 17 too and is next door in Donna's pasture along with a three-year-old Thoroughbred gelding named Beau. Like Bentley, Bonnie too got the long plastic glove treatment. Guess what? Bonnie is nine months pregnant. The gestation period for horses is 11 months and 10 days, so we could well have a foal in March. When Bonnie begins to have milk in her teats (it's called "bagging up") we will bring her to our barn and put her in our third box stall -- especially at night, because that's usually when horses give birth. We don't know what kind of stud Bonnie was bred to, so it will all be a lot of fun! Donna is a bit depressed, as she didn't realize that she had bought a pregnant mare last July and wasn't counting on more horses.

The vet will return to geld Cairo in the spring ... probably around the time Bonnie has her foal or maybe in early April.

Oh, and we're probably going to get a black labrador female dog this week. Her name is Lady and she's 2 years old. She's very sweet and likes to fetch and be petted. Luckily for Tiger Lady gets along with cats. I hope Tiger returns the courtesy. Lady belongs to Donna's daughter Katy, but there's no room for Lady in Katy's apartment anymore.

We will go to Minneapolis tomorrow afternoon with the moving truck and the Mazda. We will spend the night at the apartment and load the truck Thursday morning. Richard is coming to help. I will clean the place and then turn in the keys and return to the farm in the car. It will be nice to be here 24/7!

This afternoon, after all of the excitement this morning, I am scraping remnants of wallpaper from the bead board ceiling in the living room. It's kind of a pain, but it will be worth it when its all finished.

Every farm needs a truck, right?

This Thursday morning (January 26) we move from the apartment in Minneapolis. We have been spending nights at the farm since last Thursday (January 19) after enjoying a week at neighbor Donna's feeding her horses and cat while she was in Hawaii attending her son's wedding.

There's more work to do in the living room area (eventually the master bedroom) but we've made it as comfy as possible. Tiger approves and is glad we are here with him full time. While we finish the renovation we'll store most of our stuff in the garage. It will be nice to be here and not have to run two households physically or financially.

We also bought a truck to go along with our little yellow Mazda! A blue 1997 Chevrolet Cheyenne extended cab pick up, it's an automatic with 4-wheel drive. It's full bed is nice for hauling hay, drywall and stuff. It rides nice too. Ian says that's due to the long wheel base. It has a trailer hitch too and has enough power to pull a horse trailer, although we don't have one of those (yet).

Speaking of horses, we went to the monthly horse auction last night, the same one where we bought Cairo. We did bid on a couple of horses, but did not come home with any new ones. We'll try again next month. :-)

The high speed wireless Internet should be connect later this week, as will the office phone and fax line. We already have a house telephone line and are staying in touch via dial-up connection (painfully s-l-o-w).

Getting ready to move

We're spending more and more time at the farm. Thanks to Alexandra & Peter we were able to get an excellent start in doing the kitchen floor. It now has all of the sub-floor down with new joists and supports underneath .... and it is level!

Thanks to girlfriend Sandy who spent two days helping me, the Minneapolis apartment is all packed into boxes and ready for moving on January 26.

Tiger our orange tabby cat has already relocated to the farmhouse. He goes between watching us work and looking out the windows at his new domain. We haven't told him that we're planning on getting a dog! LOL

Great help

Ian's children Alexandra (16) and Peter (13) are visiting with us until Wednesday, We'll be sending them home to Ottawa with callous on their hands and a great sense of accomplishment. Their assistance with ripping up the tongue-n-groove kitchen floor has been invaluable. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

A horse, of course

We went to the local horse auction on Saturday and came home with an Arabian yearling stud colt. He is a purebred, but isn't registered with papers. We have named him Cairo. He is chestnut color with one ankle-high white sock, with a white strip on his nose and half moon on his forehead. At a little more than one year old, he stands 13 hands high to his withers (there are 4 inches in each "hand"). He could grow as much as another eight inches and weigh up to 1000 pounds as an adult horse. We will have him gelded sometime next summer, as we don't want to run a breeding horse farm. Besides, without papers and a competition-winning history what's the point? Cairo will be old enough to ride in 2007, but there is a lot we can teach him in the meantime.

Cairo has been raised in a heated barn and does not have a winter coat. He must wear the horse blanket he is pictured in 24/7 until he grows enough to withstand the cold Minnesota days and colder winter nights. I'm not sure that's he's ever been out in a pasture on his own, as the Sunday afternoon he was out he looked like he wasn't quite sure what to do. Cairo is very friendly, comes when he's called and seems to have been handled a lot. He has been allowed to nip without being corrected, so that's something we need to work on. He does stand quietly when being brushed and will allow his feet to be cleaned. Of course being an Arab he carries his head and tail quite high and has lovely foot action.

Our neighbor Donna, who owns three horses, suggested we borrow her 17-year-old Thoroughbred mare as a stable mate for Cairo. It has been so cold the last two days with a fierce north wind blowing that neither horse could leave their box stalls. We're up at the farm doing renovation most days, so we share the horse care duties with Donna. We're on schedule to relocate to Stanchfield this time next month. In fact, soon, we'll be able to spend some nights there and work longer hours getting the farmhouse into shape.

Now old Macdonald has a horse... E-I-E-I-O.

One dumpster filled

We've just completed our 13th work day at the Stanchfield farm since signing the mortgage papers on November 1. We taken out 30 cubic yards (about 10 tons) of demolition waste from the house, e.g., drywall, wood paneling, wallpaper, wainscoting, door, window and baseboard moldings, ceiling tiles, faux ceiling beams, etc. Soon we will begin the rebuilding phase with laying in the wiring, insulation, the framing and plumbing for the 2 new bathrooms and plumbing for the kitchen dishwasher and drywalling. The room framing, drywall and plumbing we will contract out. The electrics must be inspected (of course) and we'll have an electrician upgrade the current 60 amp fuse box to something more suitable. It's certainly an education.

The living room was covered in wood paneling and about five layers of wallpaper and is now stripped down to the boards. On the exterior walls we will put a 2 x 4 (inches) piece of wood vertically floor-to-ceiling every 24 inches and after the wiring is done, we will fill the 24 inch gaps with rolls of insulation. After the vapor barrier, drywall is placed over the studs and insulation and bare boards on all four walls to create a new wall for painting.

Stripping the ceiling tiles in the living room revealed beautiful wooden beadboard ceilings. We hope to restore these and make them a feature. There are similar ceilings in the kitchen and upstairs bedrooms.

We filled the first rolloff and had it collected today and replaced with an empty one waiting for us to begin filling this Friday.

Ian installed our mailbox, which was no small task. We were told by our mail carrier that our box, which sat atop a fence post, was not properly mounted and that we needed to by a contraption that allowed the snowplows to clear the road without knocking down the post. We bought the "swing away" from the highway department, bought a larger mailbox to accommodate the various packets we routinely get, and Ian cobbled it all together. We're officially able to receive mail now. Some magazines take quite a while to do changes of address, so I've gotten a jump on them. We're at the farm every weekend so we won't miss anything.

Our neighbor Donna asked if she could bring her horses over to feed on our very grassy pasture. I said sure. There are three altogether; 2 mares (one thoroughbred, one quarter horse; both 17 years old) and 1 three-year-old gelding thoroughbred.

Another interesting fact: Donna and I graduated in the same high school class, but did not know one another. I'm sure in future discussions we'll find some people we knew in common.

Sunday we had lumber and insulation batts delivered. Soon we're going to rip up the kitchen floor, back to its joists and level it. Walking on it now makes one feel a bit drunk. We've begun looking at lighting fixtures and have already chosen our kitchen from the IKEA catalog.

The weather is chilly this week with temps in the teens, making it below zero Celsius!

Renovation gets serious

Ian and I are having a lot of fun renovating the farmhouse we bought at the beginning of the month. This two-story, three-bedroom, 1 bathroom house built in 1895 sits in 10 acres near Cambridge, Minnesota. When we are done with our renovation and addition it will have four bedrooms, three bathrooms, an eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, a study, living room, wrap-around three-season porch and an attached three-car garage. If all goes as planned this should all be done by this time next year.

Ian is taking down the plastered meringue-looking plastered ceiling. It was whipped up onto drywall, set in stiff peaks and now comes off in heavy chunks. We are removing this ceiling from almost every ceiling in the house except the living room.

Ian spent most of the day last Saturday dismantling a two and a half story chimney that was no longer being used. He began taking it apart brick-by-brick in the attic, then in the bedroom and, finally, in the main floor kitchen where he uncovered an old bird’s nest! Having this chimney gone will give us flat useable wall space in both the bedroom and kitchen.

Son Richard came to help us on Sunday. He and Ian made short work of getting the huge pile of refuse out from the living room and into the hired dumpster sitting in the front yard (its dimensions are 10 long x 2 wide x 2 deep yards).

I wrestled with an oak wood doorframe that was winning until I got a good foothold. Wisely Ian stood well out of the way so he’s not on the receiving end of all that momentum!

The house will be ready for us to live in around mid-January 2006. We will have the new kitchen installed and working, the upstairs bedrooms livable and have a full bathroom installed on the upper level. We are spending every weekend doing the work we can. I think paid help will come to join our ranks in a week or so when we begin to put things back together, e.g., re-wiring the house, roughing in plumbing for three bathrooms, installing insulation and drywall.

Even though we are not there fulltime until after the holidays, we are beginning to receive mail there. It's smart to do this as far in advance as possible because some magazines take a long time to do change of addresses.

Work begins

We've begun ripping out things at the farm in Stanchfield. It's a lot more fun than I expected ... using a crowbar is very cathartic! We're spending the next several 3-day weekends (Friday-Sunday) to get the place livable. The pile of garbage (about 4 feet high and 10 feet across) is from two rooms and there are three more to go. We will have a large trash container delivered this week and begin getting the old stuff out of the house. There is a scary nest of wires that is the fuse box!

E-I-E-I-O

On November 1, 2005, Ian and I bought a 10-acre farm. Built in 1895, the 3-bedroom farmhouse needs updating so we won't move from our rented apartment in Minneapolis until February 2006. The farm is an hour's drive north of Minneapolis (55 miles) and is located near the village of Stanchfield, just north of Cambridge, Minnesota. The farm has two barns and a detached double-car garage, 2 acres of lawn and garden with eight acres of fenced pasture (no horses yet). In Spring 2006 we plan to build an addition (family room, dining room, study) with a breezeway to an attached garage.