DECEMBER 2020

TRUDY:
I am so sorry about Gemma's situation. That judge sounds like one who will end up on the nightly news when one of his judgments causes a disaster.


GRAYMARE:
I have seen CB respond to posts on FaceBook, although not in a few days. Hopefully no one is sick.


Anyone want to buy the house next door to us? It is for sale, again. The guy who bought it to flip has listed it for sale for about hundred thousand more than he got it for, but he did clean it up quite a bit. You can see a bit of our barn and house in photos # 42 and 45. The angles are a bit deceptive in a lot of the photos, so it looks bigger than it actually is. But it is fair size. Some of it is older than it states, too. The original parts of the house were built in the early 1800s.

https://homes.swvarealty.com/idx/details/listing/b269/410508#/

It looks like a really pretty property. In an older house, I was glad to see they left the trim stained and not painted.
The work they did LOOKS good, but I hope they did proper structure repair.

ARK, I hope you get good neighbors...........it's a neat house, one that requires new bathrooms. And,
how great that old barn is that needs a fortune to repair............and red, of course. Anyhow, I could
enjoy it there. One minor detail..........I'm old with no energy or ambition to tackle that kind of
project............or even think of it.............I'm the type that would open up the house and make it an
open floor plan. I wonder what the oil costs to heat the place.........

Everyone have a good evening...........

I wonder if that barn is a timber frame? The Barnwood Builders might like to get hold of that. They would buy it, take it down, fix it up, and put it up somewhere else.

MG That is just so wrong for little Gemma. So sorry to hear. Stories like hers make me want to gather all little ones up for a hug.

ARK, I like your neighbor's house and I think the price looks reasonable. At least compared to property around here. I would love to have built in bookcases. I would also love to rebuild my house. If I knew then what I know now about my house I definitely would have done things differently. I have about 8 years left on my mortgage. Maybe when I get it paid off I'll do some remodeling. ah well...

LOL, the barn is mine..........I'm going to fix it and live in it on 1 acre...................

ELLEN:
 I will have to go take a look inside the barn to tell you how it's built.  I suspect post and beam, but could be wrong.  

GRAYMARE:
 Well that barn is rustic looking, but seriously, I am surprised it is still standing!  You would be a bit chilly in it if you lived in it.   And if you look at the second photo, you can see it is located about 20 feet from the property line with our garage about 20 feet past that.  The fenceline in the photo is the property line,. I have waited on it to collapse for years.  
 When we bought our property, there was a huge, collapsed barn where our detached garage/shop  now stands.  What a mess!  It had been big enough to hold 2500 bales of hay.  It is so sad folks allow buildings to deteriorate so bad.  One reason we were able to get our property was that the collapsed barn turned off a lot of prospective buyers.  We certainly had a job getting it cleaned up.  Someone had come and taken all the decent wood before the property sold, leaving the worst of the worst for us.  

 

But I would love for you to live next door!

INDYAPP:
We built in book shelves in our former home, but not a one in this one. I really miss them and wish we had done it again. We bought 5 bookcases last year, all 7 feet tall, but it is just not the same as built ins.

Cold, breezy and spitting the occasional snowflake here. I am already tired of winter.

I never mentioned the 300k it would take to fix that barn up.................

ARK, your home is lovely.................I'm sure INDY'S is too.

Covid is skyrocketing..........We are still hunkered down.  Come on gang: A, wear a mask, B, wash hands relentlessly
C, social distance..............how hard is it? No vaccine for us regular folks in sight yet. I can't believe there is enough vaccine for everyone.

Prayers for ALL.

I discovered that Sam's Club now has curbside pick up. So, I put in an online order and then went to Ft. Wayne to pick it up today. Of course, I had to make a stop at Popeye's Chicken on the way home. It's only a quarter of a mile from Sam's. Love that stuff.
I was delighted to find out that there will be one only about 8 miles from here sometime next year.
Otherwise, the day was gloomy and cold. Some of the smaller isolated ponds have started to freeze up. No ice on the bigger lakes yet. Boats on the lake are few and far between.

ELLEN:
We live in the back of beyond, no Sam's Club, no Popeyes. I think Roanoke might have a Sam's Club, but that is 50 miles away. Sort of takes care of any savings.... We did get an Aldi's last year in Christiansburg, 14 miles from here.

We did curbside pickup today at Kroger's. I'd rather get my own groceries in the store, but not for awhile. I wonder when we over the hill types will get the vaccine?


Windy, windy, cold, but sunny here today. Ivan and I are going for a ride on Thursday at Pandapas with just one other horse/rider. It will be 58 degrees!

Ark, the nearest Sam's for me is about 35 miles away, but there are things I can buy in bulk that cost enough less that it makes the trip reasonable. In normal times, I only go there about 3 or 4 times a year.
Of course, ordering everything online means that I forget some items. Almost as soon as I got home, I thought of 3 things I meant to get.
I'll be so glad to be able to go IN the stores again.

I'm loving this weather, and I guess the horses are too. Here it is the 9th of December and I haven't had to run extension chords and plug in the water tank heater yet. That will be a big savings on the electric bill this month. There are some mornings that the tank has a thin layer of ice but it is easily broken and by mid morning all thawed out. One downside is that it is dark in the a.m. and p.m. when I feed. Except on weekends I don't get to see the horses in daylight. Last night I was walking into the barn with the feed buckets and Sophie decided to do this little buck and rear thing in place. Kind of like the Spanish Riding School but not near as elegant. Tiberius then says "Watch This!" and the next thing I know I have four running, rearing, bucking, and farting horses around me showing off in the dark. I have a headlamp that I wear for light and it was a bit like a dance strobe light as I was turning my head around to keep track of everyone so no one accidently kicked me. A quick Boss Mare shout from me and they settled back down, but it was funny.

Our animals have to provide some entertainment for us, to keep us interested.

We are staging a walk through Bethlehem..............well, the neighbors are. The little kids are
shepherds, wise men, etc........we shall see how it comes out.......admission tax is canned food
which will then be distributed to the church.  Of course, I think it will be darling.

No other news.  Oh, it rained all the evening before and all day yesterday, not at all what's needed but it helps.

Wow, Dec 11...........two weeks until Christmas.  The time is flying by..............

Saturday 6P.............oh brother that was really cute this PM........they had a huge crew of kids
all in different yards.......of course, it was a sweet cute debacle...........some kids serious, some just
running free........but we sang a few carols which was really nice.........the adults and older kids
are going to carol the neighborhood about 8:30 or 9P........I will open the front door when
I hear them coming.

It's official. None of my family will be getting together for Christmas this year. I guess it will make us more grateful when we do get together. Time to concentrate on the real reason for Christmas.

One more cute story. When Joseeph & Mary were looking for a place to stay, when they were told
there was no room at the inn, one little girl piped up, "it's OK, she can stay in my room"........
leave it to kids sweetness.

We got a real tree today........I can"t wait to get it up...........

Good for you, Graymare! You just can't beat the smell of a real tree.
My mom and dad always had a real tree. Of course, back in those days, the artificial trees looked just awful. Twice, they even tried getting live trees to replant after Christmas, but they didn't survive.
With the way I like to decorate, an artificial tree is better - minus the good aroma.

Where is everybody?

If everybody is like me, there is so little going on there is nothing to tell. A summer neighbor sent me a link for an eagles' nest camera on Sanibel Island, Florida. Neither one of us has anything else to talk about.
I told her I thought she would be as bored as I am if I told her about how many rows I've knitted and that I got a leaky tire fixed.
The big adventure of the day was stopping at the car dealership to have them help me get the Bluetooth of the new phone connected to the car. I had tried to get it done and failed miserably. It took him about 30 seconds to get it done. I am glad to have hands-free working again.

Here are the supplements we should be on for best immune response for Covid 19:

Vitamin C = 1000 mg per day
Vitamin D3 = 1000mg IU per day
Zinc = 50 mg 3x per week
Quercitin = 500 mg 1-2x per day
N-aetyl-cysteine = 600 mg 1-2x per day

Not much going on here.  We are getting ready for a snowstorm coming on Wednesday, but don't expect more than 3 inches of snow from it.  It will be very bad further north.    So we have hay in the hay stall in the barn,  the snowblower on the ready, and groceries coming tomorrow.  Bread and milk, you know...


We found 50 bales of hay that will be delivered soon.  The weather has been so mild, we still have grass for the horses to eat when it isn't too muddy or snow covered.  The horses have to wear grazing muzzles, which they hate, but it does keep them from eating too much grass.   We got new grazing muzzles for all but Trinket.  They are called Green Guard grazing muzzles.  Donnie calls them "Barbie's laundry baskets".  They do look like laundry baskets.    The horses don't mind wearing them as much as the regular black nylon grazing muzzles.

I had a surprise today.........Isaiah colicked...........So I called the vet and he
was tubed..........He now has poop and a low head and I'm broke.............BUT, he is fine............or
will be.

Graymare, I'm so glad you got Isaiah treated in time. It is so strange when they colic like that. Nothing has changed. Same food. Same everything.

Oh, ELLEN & TRUDY, looks like you are getting snow.............

GRAYMARE:
I am so glad Isaiah is doing okay. Colics are so scary. Kazi colicked, twice, on Christmas Eves. Poor vets. She recovered then. It always seems to happen on holidays or the coldest days of the year. Heated water buckets and some kind of wet mash seems to help with prevention. We put our heated water buckets up a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully they will keep on drinking in cold weather.

We are getting lots of freezing rain and ice pellets. Almost no snow, so far. Everything is covered in ice. So far our power hasn't gone off. The horses are all in the barn munching on hay. The dog and I got nice and wet taking care of them this morning.

ROSE:
The painting is coming along.... I should be able to finish it in a couple more days, but getting it to you before Christmas may not be too easy.