Eury bowling alley

This is now the end of the beginning. :-) The hall does look like it might make a mini bowling lane, huh? It feels so nice to walk on a real floor. The next floor to go down will be in the master bedroom. Some of it got done where the hall extends into the bedroom. First, the second coat of clay must be applied.



Now we are going to cook and clean in preparation for tomorrow.

The Beginning of the End

While we still have more painting to do, wherever we have completed the painting we will now lay the final finishing touch (minus baseboards) of flooring. It is wonderful to be rid of seeing and walking on at least some of the yucky looking and feeling subfloor. Lay that bamboo down Babe, lay that bamboo down!

Retired folks? We wish!

Another step toward completion of our new home. WE are working steadily in an effort to be able to just sit back and enjoy our mountain home. Each day brings more progress. In case you do not check our Flickr account we will post some of the latest happenings from time to time. Retirement is wonderful. Wonder when we can really retire...

Well,Guys,
At last we are laying on the clay in our bedroom. The bottom picture shows the east wall as it is drying. Looks funny, doesn't it? The second picture shows the weird corner of the west wall with the door to the hall shown on the right. This wall was done yesteday and is totally dry now. Interestingly, the left most part of the picture is just primed (has no clay yet) and the right most part of the picture is also just primed. They don't look alike in real life but they sure do in this picture. We love the color and Wayne is finding that clay is not as hard to deal with as he thought it would be. Mixing it is hard but spreading it on is not. We should be through with the walls before Friday and maybe, just maybe we will lay the floor in our bedroom on Friday!!

Latest member of our family

Two weeks ago as we were coming home one day just before getting to our driveway there was a little beagle standing in the middle of our road. It was very cold out and she was moving slowly toward our car as we drove up. We stopped and picked her up lest she get run over like our previous pet, Cade, had had happen back in March. We brought her home and began to inquire among neighbors if they knew of a lost beagle. She seemed so depressed and cowered so easily that we felt she had been abused and then recently dumped in our neighborhood. To make a long story short, she had no microchip for ID, no collar and tags, she was filthy dirty, had whip and hook worms, ear mites and was thin and dehydrated. We have officially adopted her and named her Windee after our property name of Windy Ridge. The vet thinks she is about 3-4 years old. Now, my question is this:

How do you house break an adult dog?

You can see more pics of Windee and of Cadie on our Flickrs photos.

Major Pet Scare

On this crisp, cold and very windy Sunday morning I let Cadie out as usual and when I went to the door to let her back in she was laying down on the back porch chewing on some morsel and really enjoying it. It turned out to be a partial chunk of rodent poison that had been pulled out of the child/pet proof box by what ever rodent had been feasting on it. We went into heart failure. We called animal emergency and were told to pour 1 tbsp per 10 pounds of body weight (she weighs 80 lbs) of hydrogen peroxide down her throat immediately to induce vomiting. We got about 2 tbsp down and waited a few minutes. She threw up twice losing all of her recently eaten breakfast along with a few of the tiny yellow pebbles of poison. Then we thawed a 10 ounce box of spinach that is high in Vitamin K (the antidote for the anti-coagulant poison, our idea as an alternative to rushing to an emergency vet clinic for a shot of Vit K) and got her to eat most of it. Now we wait. She should be alright but only time will tell.

Our current "baby"

When we first got Cadie she was only 3 months old and she weighed 29 lbs. Now she is over 10 months old and weighs 80 lbs. Cadie is a full blooded Old English Sheep dog. She is our loving companion and we enjoy her immensely. She goes everywhere with us. Interestingly, she practices herding in spite of never having seen a herd of anything. She will gently nudge us or a visiting dog or little children to make them go where she thinks they should. Problem is, they don't necessarily need to go where she is herding them. Sheep dogs they say, are stubborn. Guess they have to be to make a herd of sheep or goats go where they need to go. Her stubbornness is reflected daily with us as she tries to get us to do something we are not ready or willing to do. She is a mess. Right now her fur is greater than 6 inches in length and will continue to grow until Spring at which time we will have her clipped to about 2 inches all over. This will mostly cause a weight loss of a few pounds and, boy, will she look different. We will post a before and after pic of her in April.

Many years gone by

Now our family is all grown up and out in the world. See our 4 grown up beauties?

Each of our 4 children has 3-4 kids making for many grandchildren, whom we obviously dearly love. Actually, the littlest tyke is in the arms of her daddy, our oldest grandchild. Yes, we have a great grandchild. Her name is Lola. Please note the abundance of boys in this family (10 out of 14).