Construction. Day One

Day one of construction is done.  Gone.  Thank goodness.  I'm pooped.  The day started off somewhat leisurely with attention to the chicklets and alpacas.  Everyone needed food and preparation for the day, including Peter and I.  Cleverly I threw food in the crock pot so we'd have dinner ready when we wanted it.  We began our endeavors by 10:00.

Our construction plan involves a complex chain of events.  Here is a before photo of stage one.

Our plan involves turning the garage into additional living space for the MIL suite. Our plan is to remove the garage door, frame in a wall, add a window, remove the brown door on the end, add a window, re-side the building and build a pergola/patio where those plants are on the end.  On the inside we are going to vault the ceiling, insulate and sheet rock the walls, break out the old concrete and re-pour the floor, topping it with matching hardwood that we put in the rest of the suite last year.  Before we can do any of that we need to remove the parking pad and tree stumps, raise the level of the ground, re-pour cement to include the foundation of the garage and future pergola.  But before we can do that we need to make space for the pile of broken concrete and foundation that we need to break out, as well as the soil we're going to try to sift and salvage.

And that's just stage 1.  

My beloved husband (aka the great time under-estimator) says we can have it done in a couple of weeks.  Bwaa haaa haaa!

Now that you know the plan, here is how day one went.  Peter started clearing a space for the concrete and soil while I started emptying the garage.  Most of the stuff in the garage was not mine so I could not make the judgement call on what to do with it.  I just hauled it out to the parking slab and sorted into piles:  Tools/hardware, garden, wine-making, organic material (like potato starts, cuttings, etc), everything else, hazardous waste (there were cans and cans of unlabeled paints and chemicals) and then a pile for the stuff that probably needs to go to the dump.

By 3:00 the garage was mostly empty, Peter was done with his task and began tackling the chore of sorting through the piles.  He added new piles to my sorting schema and made serious progress.  I turned into his assistant as the decisions being made could not be made by me. The problem was that by the time we finished sorting, nothing was actually put away and it was nearing 9 pm.  We had promised his mother that we would not leave anything on the slab overnight.  She worries about how things look.

Peter stashed the potatoes in the barn, as well as the tools and hardware, while I burned our burn pile.  A few things were put in Peter's mom's van for charity and a few things were put in the SUV for recycling.

Everything else went back into the garage.

EVERYTHING.

(can you hear the crickets chirping?)

At least it's sorted for easy dispersal once the dump, recycling & hazardous waste places open on Monday.  Peter still needs to make some decisions on where to put the things we aren't getting rid of but the hardest part of this section of the plan is over with.  yay.

Cheep Cheep Cheep

Chickens!!  We got chickens!  We're starting with 6.  2 cuckoo maran, 2 black australorp & 2 silver laced wyandottes:

When they grow up the Cuckoo Marans will look like this:

and they will lay eggs that look like this:

The Black Australorps lay a nice medium brown egg and will look like this:

The Silver Laced Wyandottes lay a light brown egg and will look like this:

Chickens come in all sorts of shapes and sizes but I find that I like big, hearty birds.  As my mother taught me, you're not healthy if you're not fat!  No little bantam hens for me!  Peter likes the little ones though so we will, eventually, get some of them (once we're sure our chicken virus is gone we'll get LOTS more chicks).  I got free reign in chicken picken while Peter was off on another errand so I picked out the breeds that appealed to me.  I very nearly brought home two turkey chicks.  They are very friendly little birds and I love adult turkeys.  They have such attitude as they strut around with their plumage.  But I resisted.  For now anyway.

Right now our chicklets are asleep in a box in the kitchen.  They will live there for a few days, perhaps for even a week or more, until they get strong enough to survive outside.  I don't mind chickens in my kitchen at all and I'm in no hurry to throw them out the door.

Tomorrow we begin construction on converting the garage into additional living space for Peter's mom.  It's all part of a process that will require tearing out the parking pad, re-grading the front lawn, re-pouring concrete paths and parking pads and framing walls, hanging sheet rock, installing windows, painting, re-siding, and building a pergola and a breezeway between the two houses. I've already taken the before pictures so I'll be sure to put up updates.

...

My husband gets me.  The other day I got some very sad news.  While I was processing the information I started tearing up the kitchen floor.  Peter came in and found me on the floor picking away at the 70 year old vinyl and didn't say a word about the mess I had created.  Yesterday he said to someone:  "she didn't have clover to pull and I know she needed that release."  That's when I knew that he understands me.  The funny part is that he got me before I got me.  I didn't realize that's what I was doing, a home remodeling version of picking clover.  He's a good man, this one.

The sad news I received is that a dear friend in Salem had lost her son.  He died.  His funeral was today.  He was 19 years old.  This young man had played with my children when they were younger.  He was an adventurous kid.  He lived life on the edge.  At his service they read a poem he wrote when he was 14.  It was very insightful.  He was the "troublemaker" and teachers didn't know what to do with him.  He couldn't turn down a triple dog dare and he needed to fly.  His friends got up and told stories of how smart he was and the dares he took.  They will all miss him.  How could they not?

The sadness I feel for my friend is incomprehensible, yet I'm sure it's nearly nothing to the sorrow she is experiencing.  

No one should ever have have to bury their child.  We need to hug our babies (no matter how old they are) and hold them tight.  We need to love them and tell them we love them.   We need to accept them for who they are, we need to embrace their uniqueness.  A week ago I may have complained about my children's choices but perspective convinces me they are wonderful and perfect just the way they are and I won't complain.  I know I'm feeling melancholy (it's been a hard day) and time and distance will probably again make me question their decisions.  But for now, I just wanted to hold them, just like they are.

Friday evening at the Willingdon's - Vern get's sloshed!

It all started out so innocently.  Peter was working late and dusk was settling upon this little house on the ditch.  The alpacas were out in the pasture and it was time to bring them in.

I haven't had much luck wrangling 4 alpacas by myself but I was resolved to get it done tonight.  With determination and perhaps a bit of foolishness I headed out to the pasture.  Chupa came right to me.  She's so easy!  Surprisingly Chaca - one of our new girls - came right to me as well.  Cadbury and Cheeka weren't so keen on the idea.  After hanging on to two and chasing two for a while I decided it wasn't working.  It wasn't going to work so I gave up and brought the first two to the barn.  When I got back to the pasture Cadbury was quite distressed as she had never been separated from Chupa before and was ready to go.  Now.  She wasn't very interested in helping me round up Cheeka so I took her to the barn as well.

That meant three alpaca were in and one alpaca was out.  That should be manageable!  The problem was, she simply didn't want to come in.  I chased her around the pasture for 10 minutes and finally got her cornered by the gate.  I was so pleased with myself.  I stuck to it and I was going to have all the alpaca in... by myself!  As I approached her she went low to the ground and  "POOF" she was under the gate and out of the pasture!  Loose in the big old scary world!

I don't generally have a potty mouth any more but expletives flew.  By now it was well past dusk.  It was dark.  Cheeka is black.  Not a good combination.

I called Peter.  He didn't answer his phone.  Even if he had it's not like he could have come home instantly anyway but at least he could not dawdle once he was through with his patients.  I pondered my options.  Cheeka would not let me approach her - if I moved toward her it just made her go farther.  I tried to tempt her with grain in my pocket.  That didn't work in the pasture and it sure didn't work out of the pasture.  I called Peter again.  Still no answer.  In a panic and with very little other resources I called the freighbor.  I barely had to get out the words:  "alpaca's loose" and she said "we're on our way!"

She and Vern, her husband, showed up in mere minutes.  It didn't take long for Shelly and I to get her between us but she bolted before we could get close enough.  She ran south.  She ran past Vern and we lost her in the dark.  We looked and looked with no luck.  I decided to go get her sister, hoping she would be able to tempt Cheeka into joining us.  On the way to get Chaca I spotted Cheeka in the newly dug vegetable garden.  We closed in, she bolted, heading north.  Vern and Shelly went north, I went to fetch Chaca who really wasn't very happy about being drug out in the dark to be bait for her sister.  We spread out with flashlights and headlamps searching in the brambles, through the neighbor's fields, we looked in the creek, across the road, in the woods.  We looked for over an hour and found no sign of her.  I tried to call Peter a couple more times with still no answer.

I put Chaca in the pasture with the hope that she would draw Cheeka to her and then continued my  quest.

I wanted to cry.  I'm not REALLY a farm girl - I just play at being one and I just couldn't imagine where my lost girl could be.  How far would she go?  What would she do over night if we couldn't find her?  I told myself that I could not give into the luxury of sitting down in the field and sobbing like a baby no matter how badly I wanted to.  I had to fix this.

Two hours into this adventure I was searching down the back laneway and heard a big splash.  At first I thought it was Cheeka but then realized the splash had a flashlight.  Vern had tried to jump the back ditch and didn't make it.  :(  Poor Vern got wet.  Sloshed even.

Vern and I followed the alpaca's usual path to the barn and I poked my head in and said "there are my first two.." and Vern said:  "there are three in there!"

Sure enough, I took a second look and there was Cheeka, standing by the stall without a care in the world!  relief washed over me.

I briefly considered leaving Chaca out in the pasture for Peter to get but we had to go out and fetch Shelly - who was now lost in the dark somewhere.  It wasn't long  before I rounded up both of them and we headed back to the barn.  Just as we rounded the corner by the house we bumped into Peter - who had just gotten home.  Nice timing I say!  He had accidentally left his phone home and was sorry to have missed all the fun.

As of this moment I don't think I'll be attempting to wrangle alpacas by myself anymore.  I might change my mind one day in the far distant future but for now, nope, I couldn't possible handle too many more nights like this.