Intent

I love these two pictures of the girls at the Games Rally last fall. I see both horse and rider intent on getting to the same place and getting it done together.

Amber on Dreamer

Macy on Kiwi

The Magic of Light

I have had the opportunity to discover for myself just how effective the power of red light therapy can be. When I went to Vermont two years ago to crew for one of the horse/rider teams on the 100 mile endurance ride, I ended up slamming my finger in the door of the pick-up truck first thing in the morning. I almost passed out from pain and an empty stomach. I got it doctored up and went on to tend to the horse I was in charge of, getting the cut wet and dirty multiple times through the day. When I got home my husband assured me it was definitely going to get infected and I should seek medical attention. I decided to try red-lighting it as it was a week-end and I wasn't going to get seen soon anyway. I couldn't believe how well the lights took away the swelling and throbbing in my finger/nail. Every time the finger/nail would start throbbing from the pressure of the trapped blood beneath it, I would use the lights and it would ease the pain. I took pictures that time too, but can't locate them right now. I had also reinjured my finger 2 days after the first event by hurrying out the door because of some horse emergency and closing the door on my injured finger. I almost hit the ground in pain that time and the cut was reopened. Anyways, my finger healed wonderfully and all of the old blood under the nail was reabsorbed, turning from black to purple to light purple to pink and then gone! I did lose my nail as the blood had seperated it from the nail bed but never had to drill a hole in the nail to relieve pressure and no infection in the cut on my finger.
Unfortunately, I didn't learn how to keep my fingers out of the way, and ended up shutting the same finger in my front door just a day after looking at it and thinking how nicely it had healed and and how well the nail had regrown! Same thing, slammed it so hard it cut my finger and gave me a bruise under the nail. I do have pictures of the healing process of this incident, I was confident that the lights would wield their magic on this injury and they certainly did. The first picture is a little gross, but the rest are amazing I think!

The day I reinjured my finger, 3/23/2009

After using the red-light for a week

The next day

Two weeks after injury and mostly healed. You can see the outline of where the old blood was and how it has turned lighter and lighter as the blood was reabsorbed.

What We Left Behind, Or Tried To!

At our house in Vassalboro, we kept the trash can under the sink. This was a small, short space, and we had a lot of trouble finding a trash can that would fit there. I finally found one at Marden's and bought 5 or 6 of them, they were only a dollar or two a piece. Well, over the years they would get cracked and broken and we would use the next one. Unfortunately, we ran out of new cans and I never could find another one that fit that space, so we used the trusty Maine solution to most things, Duct Tape. The new spiffy colors weren't available yet, or it would've looked cooler than this! Now the bucket was usually hidden from sight, but sometimes people would see it and ask how we were doing financially seeing as how we couldn't afford a new trash can! I would explain the situation and add another layer of tape as needed. Needless to say, that trash can was something I WAS NOT planning to bring with me. I tend to use things til I can't, still have the same clothes iron, mixer and Tupperware I got 30 years ago when we got married! I was pretty spare with furnishings and decore, as I'm not fond of dusting, and much of it was hand-me down from relatives. With 6 kids in the house, all my favorite things would get broken anyway, so whatever I could get to use for free or cheap seemed like the best way to go. But now that we were building a new place, I had very little that I wanted to take with me, its finally time for new stuff! So imagine my dismay when I start sorting through the things we packed and piled, finding things that I had wanted to keep ruined by rain or improper handling and realizing this damn trash can had followed me intact! Needless to say, I bought a new can for the camper and this one is now in the trash instead of containing it!

A Good Chuckle

Before we got the Port-a-Potty delivered, we had to use another potty. We borrowed one from Alan's parents and put it in the shower stall in the bathroom. After the Port-a-Potty was delivered, we kept it in here for night-time use, as the girls weren't too keen on going outside after dark to use the facilities! It was a pain to take it out of the shower everytime we wanted to get clean, but we were glad to have it.

Here's what it looked like with the cover on:

and with the cover off.

Inside was a bucket that you removed and emptied. One day I happened to notice what the bucket said on it:

I really had to laugh! Liquid Miracid Plant Food from Miricle Grow! Quite fitting, doncha think?

My Uncle Raymond

My Uncle Raymond was the oldest of my mother's siblings. He loved horses and owned drafts which he used to twitch wood from his woodlot and he also competed at the pulling contests at the local fairs. He and my aunt had no children, his horses were like family to him. They would travel to different states and bought some really nice teams of horses and he was widely known in the horse world here in Maine. He used to whistle to his horses to get them to pull at the fairs and frowned on the use of electric wire shocks to get them to go. I lived an hour and a half from him, so didn't get to spend a huge amount of time with him, but always loved to go visit and see the horses. He was also known for being frugal, coonverting an old school bus into a horse trailer and doing many things himself, such as shoeing. He died at age 70 of a heart attack while shoeing one of his horses. That would be the way he would have wanted it.

I think of Uncle Raymond often when working with my horses, I got them after he died, and I so wish he were here still to give me advise and guidence. Sometimes I know things about a horse and don't know how I know them, and wonder if he IS still here, guiding me.

Anyways, the other day I went out to feed lunch, bundled up in my one-piece Carhartt suit with my light blue Mad Bomber hat with the gen-u-whine rabbit fur lining since the nice warm spring weather went into hiding! As I was slogging back across the paddock through the mud and puddles, a pick-up truck drove up my road and parked in my driveway. A man got out and the little puppy-doodles ran to greet him. When I reached him, he introduced himself as the neighbor that lives at the end our our main road, the house with all the heavy equipment and a few horses. Alan noticed the equipment, I knew the horses! Anyway, he offered his services when we were ready to clear some land and we got talking about this property and horses of course. He has a lot of daughters I learned from someone else, eight of them I was told! Some of them were into horses and one did really well in barrel racing, competing throughout the US and Canada. He also had drafts, so I asked him if he knew of my Uncle Raymond. Of course he did he said! He grew up around Raymond, his family owns a sawmill and milled much of his wood. Then he told me that he owns the remaining horse from my uncle's last team, a horse named Dick. Said he was a great horse and he had just used him to twitch wood the other day. How cool is that?!

Head of Falls

It turned out to be a really hot summer after all the rain. We had been spoiled by our pool and being able to jump into it whenever we got too hot working around the farm. The water tank wasn't big enough for all of us, so we had to find a new place to cool off. A new friend told us about a place where there is a dam and you can swim there. It was by the Head of Falls church and turned out to be exactly 5 miles from our driveway.

Its a beautiful place to swim, you can take pool loungers and float down the river propelled by the water spilling through the holes at each end of the dam.

For a jacuzzi like experience, you can brace your feet against the rocks and sit in front of the outlets and let the water pound on your back like a water jet.

There are big rocks to sit on and bask in the sun while being cooled by the water.

This year we would like to take a canoe down the river, it looks like a beautiful canoe ride!

We had so much fun swimming at the dam!

Happy Homecoming

When we sold the house, we were hoping that we would be able to move after our youngest son, William, came home on leave to visit. He had been in Afghanistan and we were so eager to see him. We moved to the house when he was just 3-4 so it was all he remembered living in and he wasn't too happy about our selling it. We were hoping he would get to stay there one last time, but it didn't work out that way. So 3 days after we moved, he arrived "home" to find all the things he remembered piled here, there and everywhere and a family trying to sort things out and figuring how to survive in a camper with no electricity or running water. He opted to stay in a hotel!

We were so glad to see him, and he really helped out in putting the horse shelters together and other things we had to get done. I felt so bad about him visiting under these conditions, we were so busy we had little time to relax and just visit. He said he felt like he was back in Afghanistan! We did get the Port-a-Potty while he was here, so that helped. But he was reduced to shaving using a Barbie jewelry box mirror!

It was a tough time for everyone, but his next visit at Christmas was much better.

Here Chick, Chick!

We made a lot of mistakes when we moved here last July, and one of them was waiting to move the chickens last. The other was leaving the chicken coop for the new owners because that meant that we HAD to move the chickens last!

Since it rained the whole month that we had to move, we didn't have a chance to build a new coop, so the chickens needed to stay in the horse trailer until we could get that done. So on closing day, we were, of course, running late and the last thing to do was catch the chickens. Alan and I were on our way back to the house after delivering the horses to the land. We called and asked the girls and Darren to catch the chickens and put them in the big wooden box we had left.

We had left the chickens in the coop to make this easier and they had no problems with most, but one did escape! So as the new owners were making the last walk through, my kids were outside chasing a stubborn chicken around the yard! We got there and it was another 1/2 hour before we finally got the darn thing, and put them all in the horse trailer. By now there was no way we could take them to the land and get back in time for the closing, so we settled for a quick wash up at the neighbors to get the sweat and moving grime off and headed in town to the lawyers with the horse trailer carrying the chickens in tow.

It was a really warm, sunny day, FINALLY, and the closing didn't go as smoothly as planned. One bank didn't transfer something they should have, etc, etc. and we ended up sitting there for a while waiting for it to be straightened out. I was getting concerned about the heat in the trailer with the chickens also being in a box, so during the wait asked Alan if maybe we should go check on the chickens. The real estate agent for the buyers (who it turns out I knew through horse-related friends) asked me what I was talking about. So I told her that we had run out of time and had to bring our chickens to the closing with us. She couldn't believe it, and I think she thought they were in our car! I told her not to worry, they were all buckled in! We had a good laugh and the chickens were fine when we were done. We really felt like the Beverly Hillbillys though, and probably looked like them too!

So we got back to our new home and set the horse trailer up as the chicken coop.

For the next few days though, a black and white chicken, which is the what the one we couldn't catch was, kept coming up to "visit" us at the camper while the rest of them stayed around their new "coop". I really think it was that darn chicken and she thought she was very special because of all the effort we put into bringing her along!

A few nights after moving here, I went down the check on all the critters for the last time and found a chicken that had fallen off the side of the wooden box and gotten caught hanging upside down between the side of the trailer and the wooden box. All I could see in the flashlight beam were sticking up chicken feet and I was thinking, "What the H---!"  I grabbed the feet and they were cold. I really thought that she was dead. I moved the box, pulled her up and got her right side up again. She was still alive and gave me a look like "whoa, HEAD RUSH!". I set her down on the trailer floor but she couldn't walk right away, just kinda wobbled around like a drunken sailor then plopped down again. You could tell she couldn't feel her feet. By the time I went back to the camper, she was looking better, and her feet were feeling warmer, but I didn't know how she'd be in the morning. She ended up being fine and I made sure the box was further away from the side of the trailer!

We did get a chicken coop finished fairly quickly and they seem to really like it!

We're very happy we brought them along, as they have been a big help in clearing the land and keeping down the ticks!

Blueberry (our oldest chicken) checking to make sure the tractor is in gear!

Where do you want this big boy?

The Redneck Spa

When we sold our house, we left behind a big 30' above ground Doughboy pool with a deep end. It was a great pool, we'd had it 13 years or so, and the kids lived in it during the summer. The girls grew up having the pool, so moving here and not having access to it was very hard for them. Luckily, they are inventive little critters and discovered a way to keep cool in less space!

Chase is wondering what they're doing in his water dish!

They even had a mud beauty treatment!

Wonderful Wednesdays

I was going through some pictures from this summer, documenting our move and adventures, and realized I wrote posts but never published them, or meant to write posts and never did. So I thought I'd update a bit and share some of the memorable moments of last year.

One good decision we made when moving was to have a porta-potty delivered until we could get our septic system in and hooked to the camper. They delivered the potty the first Wednesday we were here, it was actually the first thing you saw when you drove in. My sister thought that was completely tasteless while I thought it was extremely comforting to visitors! Anyway, part of the deal is that they come out and clean the potty once a week, and I bet you can guess which day that was! We quickly learned that if you got a chance to go spend the night somewhere else or were invited out, Tuesday was the day to shoot for. We all looked forward to Wednesdays and the nice clean potty we would have! You come to really appreciate such little luxuries in life when you're living a bit raw. We were really glad to see the potty go, once our camper was hooked to the septic, but it sure made life easier while it was here. Plus, you never knew what you'd find sneaking out of it!

The Decision Please!

This is the first house plan that we chose and really liked. We thought it may be a little too big for us, so decided to try and modify the plan, taking off the wing on the left side of the picture, which was the master bedroom. I pictured the house in a light yellow, Alan reluctantly agreed!


Then we found this house when driving around, checking out the modular homes and really liked most of it, but it was a bit too small, so we tried to combine the two plans to make one that would work for us. It was a bad decision to do that. Nothing was working out the way I wanted and it got very frustrating and overwhelming to where I didn't even want to think about it. So I didn't, just put it on hold and got settled in the camper for the winter and got through the holidays. The one thing I've heard most people say who have built a house, is that they wish they had taken more time. Getting into the house became more important than doing it right, so I'm trying not to make that mistake and not rush into anything. Hey, camper living isn't too bad really!



So about the end of January, I really started focusing on the house plans and what to do about them. I told Alan I was done with trying to fix the ones we had, maybe we should start over. So I pulled out the plans of the first house, and really, they are almost perfect, probably why we picked them in the first place! It is a little bigger, but the wing is what makes it all work. I went on line and looked up the plan, and found MY HOUSE! Someone actually built it, this is a real picture and its exactly how I imagined ours would be, its even light yellow! So now we're getting a few little things tweaked on this plan and we should be good to go! The main floor is about 1200sf and we'll still have a loft, so about 300sf upstairs, 1500 sf isn't huge so it should be doable. The wing on the right in the picture will be the entryway, and eventually there will be a garage attached. There will be a daylight basement where the girls will have their bedrooms, bathroom and a living area.

Here are some rough drafts of the floor plans, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please share!

1st Floor Plan

2nd Floor Plan