It was a busy day. Much of Kathleen’s day consisted of planting and hoeing again. I did a great job picking things out. I am not a very energetic Louise to her Thelma.
Some of our haul.
This morning we went back to My Flea, in Milano, where I’d gotten these cute guys with Chris last week. Kathleen and I got Mexican pottery for each of our new plants, and I got some for plants I’m going to root or divide.
What I got last week, and the plant that goes in the chicken.
They are so festive, and the prices are really good. I broke down and bought the plant-holding donkey to go with the other one. And I had to get a little claw-foot tub, of course, for my bathroom.
What a cheerful guy!
Kathleen got a stand for our fern and a cute little cart that actually rolls. The plan is to put seasonal decorations in the cart. Fun!
We came back and used up all our potting soil to plant our three big plants. They look so pretty, especially the fern.
Fern and stand.
We will get more soil next week. In the meantime I’ll be rooting some pothos plants.
Corn plant. Isn’t the pot pretty?
The rest of the day, Kathleen was a bundle of energy in the yard. She’s going to get rid of the burr clover and sand burs. She’s going to encourage actual grass! And she’s going to plant lantana around the trees.
Clearing around the oak tree.
And what I find most ambitious is that she is going to plant things to disguise the giant gas line and old flagpole. She prepped for those today. Next comes weed killer and whatever else. I’ll watch.
Well, here’s an announcement I’m happy to make: we have a functioning toilet in the Pope house! Running water is a dream come true! And as soon as the bathroom faucet gets finished, we’ll be able to wash our hands.
It’s a functioning toilet. Wow.
If only that were as easy to do as it sounds. Apparently, the really cute faucets that we picked out are “chingasos” for Chris (screwed up). They are delicate as daisies and must be carefully installed. Oops.
Well, it IS a pretty faucet and handles.
However, all the fittings are attached to the walls in each room with water in it, and nothing leaks, so I’m impressed as heck. We will soon have flushing and hand-washing options! I can’t wait to see Tubby with running water.
In other areas of work, the floors are finished, other than putting a bit more epoxy in the areas with the glass in them. Much of the stuff Chris put on the floor ran straight through the cracks to the ground. Oops. It will be strong now, however, with it finally sealed. The glass will be subtle, but a cool touch to the room.
The reception room, gleaming away.
We love the color that they came out, and all the character you can see (like my office has both a red splotch and a green splotch that did not sand out). I think it looks pretty darned spectacular. Now we have to let the floors cure and put in the trim around the edges. Ahh.
My office, shining.
On the second floor, Randy worked really hard to get Meghan’s future office all taped off to be painted. He had the brilliant idea of bringing in the old carpet from the other big room and spreading it on the floor so no drips would happen when the ceiling is being painted. They’ll then drag it to its original place, where it will fit perfectly and protect the floors when that room gets painted.
All taped off and ready to paint. I assume the pictures will come down.
We are not sure why this ONE room has a popcorn ceiling, but we are just going to smoosh it down and not remove it. Maybe no one will look up, right?
The wallpaper is off the fourth bedroom. Its shiplap may end up getting painted to lighten up the room, but that won’t happen for a while, because it’s the “spare room” right now. It’s nice to have the scary wallpaper gone.
The piece of furniture in the middle is a wardrobe that’s going in Lee’s office to be his “closet.”
This morning, Kathleen and I got some colorful pots for the new plants we bought. That will cheer up both the outside and the inside of the house!
Because my employer gave us the day off in honor of Juneteenth (good for them), Kathleen and I decided to do something fun. We went to the little local nursery in Cameron to get some plants for the new office, since it’s pretty smelly in there from floor finishing (another post).
New plants!
It was hard to decide what to get, because they had so many lovely things. I got myself a spider plant for my office, because the ones in Austin got aphids or something. Boo. She got a pothos for hers, but I’m going to make one out of the plant in my bedroom (and Mandi May have made me one, too).
We found our company on a poster! Kathleen is wearing her Thelma hat. I happen to have Louise.
I also got a peace plant, and because I messed up Mandi’s, I’ve made it the Mandi’s Mom Memorial Peace Plant. That pleased her. That’s it for indoors.
The peace plant, before watering. Before planting.
Kathleen got three roses for in front of her office and a hibiscus for the patio on the other side. She also got a fern and a corn plant. For now, they are on the front porch, but one is really for the reception office.
The hibiscus. It will be red.
She picked three pretty plants for the area around the mailbox. One the young man at the shop said was a Mexican honeysuckle. The others are purple. I had to look it up. PlantSnap said it was a golden dewdrop. Okay. Duranta erecta is its name and it will be big and thorny. Oh my. But it’s native to Mexico, so it may not make it through the winter.
Golden dewdrop, purple type.
Well, the nursery mostly has Mexican plants, so that makes sense! The people who run the place are very nice and take such good care of the plants. I’m very glad they’re here in our little town.
The Mexican plant collection.
After I went to the farrier visit, we planted the ones that go in the ground. I admit Kathleen did the hard work. I weeded. Then Chris also helped. It was fun, and the weather wasn’t too bad in the shade.
Thelma plants a foundation plant.
It all looks quite cheerful. Tomorrow Kathleen is going to work on the grass, and we are going to get some cheerful Mexican pottery for the indoor plants. Fun times. It’s feeling like a real, cared-for, old house!
The good news, for sure, is that Apache is walking a lot better. The bad news is that between the vet yesterday and the farrier today, plus new medicine, he is one expensive pet. But, I knew going in that horses are not for the penniless.
Apache declares’s he’s worth it. That’s me, watching him on FaceTime.
This is NOT dignified.
Yesterday, while I was at the closing on the Ross house and helping stick colored glass in the floors at the Pope house, Dr. Amy came to the ranch to float teeth on all the equines and give them their shots. I was so sad to miss that, since I’ve never been there when their teeth were floated (that is when the veterinarian takes some sort of giant buzzing raspy thing and makes their teeth even, so they can chew more easily and won’t hurt their tongues on sharp teeth.
She ended up doing all of them, even poor Fiona. Of course, they said what a great donkey she is, etc. I felt sorry for her with the giant mouth-opening appliance in her. The good news is that they do sedate the animals for this undignified procedure.
I’m smiling, really, Fiona says.
Since I could not be there, Sara was kind enough to FaceTime me, so that I could see everything. That’s why my head is in most of the photos.
Apache was very good for his floating. I am sure it was easier to keep him still, because he wasn’t wanting to walk very much.
He made Dr. Amy laugh.
No fun for anyone.
He also showed that his feet weren’t TOO bad by picking each of them up so that Mark (Sara’s friend who used to train thoroughbreds) could paint some goop on his hooves. I think he thinks Apache is gonna croak at any moment, but we think he is already getting better.
Dr. Amy prescribed some powdered Bute, which I went and bought for $45. Of course, he hates it. ARGH. We agreed he needs to eat empty calories, and she prescribed some food that fits the bill (though his current beet pulp does, too), as well as a supplement with a lot of turmeric in it. I take it, and it helps ME!
I haven’t seen the bill for that yet, but I feel a lot better having him with all his shots up to date and with an actual doctor looking at him.
Today, Trixie came by to do the long-awaited adjustments on Spice that she’d been holding off on until she got her teeth floated. As always, that was fun to watch. She also did Lakota, but I missed that part, because I was at the other work. Anyway, she said Spice is incredibly stiff. She’s coming back in a few weeks to work on her again. On the other hand, Lakota is in such great shape she could not believe he is in his late twenties. She kept gushing about his conformation and how great shape all his joints are in.
Lakota is Mr. Popularity.
Fiona was declared fine, so she didn’t get any farrier work. YAY!
But, Trixie was fascinated by Apache’s feet. Like I’d noticed before, his hooves do not feel hot to the touch (usual for laminitis, which is his current diagnosis). She also said his hooves looked pretty normal, not like the hooves of a foundering horse. Hmm, that’s what I thought, too. Maybe we’ve caught the issue in time to get him better.
Your feet are fascinating, Patchy.
What she DID see was that the bony area in the middle of his foot, around the “frog” area was longer than the hoof. Now, that’s like walking on your nail bed. It would hurt like the dickens. She trimmed him all up (and again, he stood on three legs just about as well as he normally does), and we are waiting to see how he does. It’s a short trim (someone was concerned, so I am adding this), but will be fine and allow healthy hoof material to get to the end of his foot faster.
Being a good boy and holding his foot up.
I’m sure none of the horses feel all that great, with all those shots, scary dental appliances, and hoof trimming. To be kind, we have delayed worming, which would be a final indignity, until two weeks from now. Lucky guys.
Today is the first day of the next phase of our Hearts Homes and Hands project. We closed on a pretty big piece of property in Cameron, the Ross house we’ve showed you a couple of times.
It’s ours! Let’s get that tree out of the entry.
Now Hermits’ Rest Enterprises owns the cute house, the land around it, and a lot across the street.
Look! It’s a lot!
After the closing, which was nice and smooth, we met the heirs of the previous owner. Then Lee, Kathleen, and I ran to the house and gleefully pulled up ALL the many For Sale signs around the property.
Happy Not for Sale Day!
It felt good. If Kathleen wasn’t recovering from some medical stuff, she’d have turned cartwheels. Her dream house is ready for her to have a wonderful future in it…well, as soon as it has a functioning kitchen and bathroom. Details, details.
Kathleen is trying not to run in the house and start moving stuff around.
We’re all enjoying dreaming of Victorian decor, that is when we aren’t working on the current project! the end is near!
Today is a day I’ve been waiting for a long, long time. The Big Sander has arrived, and the floors in my office and the front reception area are getting sanded. That also means that today’s the day we get to to our fun* arts and crafts project of putting pieces of broken glass in the holes in the floor to turn them into features.
Here you can see the glass before sorting.
I took some time on my lunch break to go through our can of glass pieces that used to be wine bottles and separate the really big pieces from the smaller ones. I also had to get rid of ones that still had the labels attached, since they didn’t get taken off before the smashing.
Lots of big shards of glass.
I was very careful not to get tiny shards in my fingers, but eventually I had nice piles of big chunks and smaller ones, which are what’s going in the floor. I’ll share how it comes out!
The smaller pieces of glass are in the container. Some may still be too big.
Meanwhile, Chris and Randy are wrangling with the Big and Little Sanders. Even after the first pass, the floors looked better.
Sanding in progress.
We think we will keep them the color they are, rather than staining them. It goes with our rustic theme, I think. Note that where you still see darker wood is where there are low spots in the floor. It is NOT even at all. After 115 years, it can be forgiven.
After the first pass.
I was so excited about the sanding that I took a movie. It’s probably not going to be a box-office hit, but it’s interesting to see how Chris does it.
Sanding Suna’s office.
Other renovation happenings are that Randy took the wallpaper down on the other upstairs room, the one that used to have giant hounds-tooth plaid in it. Lo and behold, that room also has plain shiplap walls. The other two had plaster, so I’d love to know why two bedrooms got plaster and two did not. I guess they were wallpapered all along.
Shiplap room, with view of future conference room, with plaster walls, through the door.
It’s a big day over here at the Hermits’ Rest, so you’ll be hearing more from me. I find it really handy to write all these happenings up, so I can refer to them later.
Looking toward the door to the balcony.
*Chris has let me know that my definition of fun is anything that I get to enjoy watching him do. So whenever I say, “This will be fun!” I mean, “This will be fun to me to watch you do!” His point is well taken.
Our friends the Lands had a crowded chicken pen and one too many roosters. So, this evening I headed over to their amazing Victorian house, which they are renovating one room at a time.
Clarence! The Big Man
I was sort of unprepared, because I thought our chicken transportation box was in the garage, but it had been taken to the dumpster. Sara suggested I take one of the feed buckets and cover it (by the way, Apache seemed a little better today).
Once I got there I realized the bucket was not going to work. Luckily, Kris had a moving box, so he set about to catching the rooster. There were a lot of chickens in the same size coop as our white one and they all hid in the back. So I stomped around and scared them to the front. In the box the Rhode Island Red went, and I drove him home.
Rooster box
We wanted to separate the rooster (Clarence) but our piece of fence had been used in the new pen. So, we tried putting him in with the young chickens.
Dude, who are you?
That did not work well. Bruce was not happy. The pullets kept getting jumped on. Not good.
Come over here, says Bertie Lee.
So Chris just picked Clarence up and put him in with the older chickens. That went way better. He ate some and said hi to the hens. Soon Ginger let him know that she is Boss Chicken.
I’m in charge here, bud.
All the big chickens then proceeded to chase Gracie. They did teamwork! A bonding moment.
See Clarence, we chase this.
By the time we left, Clarence had discovered he can fly, and was happily on the roost branch.
Some people say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and I am definitely an old[er]…person. I’ve always thought of myself as a realist, in that I see the beauty and good in the world, but I don’t deny the sadness, sorrow, injustice and pain that’s around me, either. Life is suffering, after all, says the Buddha.
Top that off with a healthy dose of empathy and sensitivity to the moods of others around me, and I end up not being the biggest little ray of sunshine in Central Texas. I have even railed about “toxic positivity” and “non-toxic positivity” right here in this blog, not that long ago.
For me, there’s room for each.
However, in the last few months, life has been conspiring to teach me new ways of walking through life, thanks to some people who just sorta showed up, or I just started paying closer attention to them. And it’s not just reading all those Buddhist articles that help you see that living in the moment is key.
You see, I used to avoid the relentlessly optimistic if at all possible. Always seeing the bright side of things, ugh. “Oh, no, I have the flu.” “That’s great! You can catch up on your reading!” I also got tired of the relentlessly negative, too. I know people who can suck the life out of any conversation by pointing out the negative consequences of anything: “It’s such a pretty day!” “Yeah, but you’ll get skin cancer if you stand in the sun.”
Depending on how you look at life, this may well be true.
I probably have mentioned before that I loathe being told to smile when I am, at the moment, not actually happy. Sure, I’ve read that forcing yourself to smile can make you happier, but sometimes there’s good reason to be unhappy, at least temporarily. Okay, fine.
Look at that happy face!
I’ve been watching the positive people in my life more closely, though. Here’s one you can watch yourself: go follow Emma G on Facebook. That is one positive woman. I happen to know that she’s faced some challenges in the year I’ve been reading her posts, but she never fails to find something good, some way a challenge has helped her grow, or a way something she’s learned can help others. I look forward to that smiling face every day, as she shares how she’s working on her musical career while minimizing danger from COVID-19.
Here, wine is helping us stay positive.
Living with Kathleen the past few months has also been a lesson at looking on the positive side of things. I have never seen anyone post so many cheerful memes in my entire life. Sometimes I’m like, geez, you have insomnia and are sick to your stomach, but you’re still posting “everything’s GREAT” all over Facebook. I see, though, that she’s trying to draw in the good stuff by sharing it (guessing it’s the power of attraction or something). Whatever it is, even when it irritates me a little, I can’t HELP but be reminded to look at what’s good in my own life, which is leading me toward a more positive outlook. She’s another person who’s had some real challenges to deal with in the past year but is finding ways to see the good. She’s never afraid to go talk to someone about our business and get some sort of positive outcome, too. Also, she’s one amazing idea generator. Now she wants me to have a donkey ranch.
This was taken just after Pam gave me a positive pep talk.
Another beacon of positivity is my friend Pam B. from the Breakfast Club here in Cameron. She’s another person who just radiates happiness and works hard to cultivate good in the world. Every time I talk to her, she says something about wanting to “elevate the good” or find joy or something to that effect. She is amazing at bringing people together for the betterment of this small but quite vital community (and is really fun to watch in community theater). Seeing how she works so hard to bring happiness to her friends, neighbors, and families is a real inspiration.
Here’s Eva with the sun behind her, making her even sunnier.
A final source of positive vibes is my coworker, Eva. I’ve known her since I started working at Planview, so I’ve had plenty of time to soak in her attitude. Especially in the past few years, she has provided a great example of how to take feedback that might upset someone or get them down, and turn it into an opportunity to learn more, find a new way to present information, or create a better product. She’s confident in the skills she has, and doesn’t take it personally when I mess with her grammar, because she knows perfectly well that the actual ideas are great. But it’s not just about work, but all aspects of her life that she brings along a sunny attitude and a lot of gratitude. It’s rubbing off, slowly but surely.
Here’s one of Kathleen’s memes.
People like this have been in my life before, some for many years, but I must be in a position to be more open to their input and to learning from them (thanks to those Enneagram books, I guess). I’ve been told that people come into your life for a reason, which is hard for someone like me, who has mostly been convinced that life is random. But, maybe there’s something to it, and something to the idea that if you surround yourself with positive people, you’ll be more positive, even if there’s a pandemic going on.
Another thoughtful meme that I have taken to heart. Some people may wish I hadn’t.
Do you know a relentlessly positive person? If you do, THANK them, and see if you can let a bit of that attitude rub off on you. Things in the world won’t change, but you may be better able to cope with it. I am, thanks to Emma, Kathleen, Pam, and Eva (and all you others I didn’t mention).
Okay, let’s all be SUPER HAPPY! Be a ray of sunshine like Emma, Kathleen, Pam, and Eva!
Sometimes life sends you from one extreme to another so quickly that it takes your mind a while to catch up. Today was one of those days.
I was walking to the horses so I could feed them, accompanied by Vlassic, who was jumping around eating grasshoppers, chased a cow, and had a grand time. As I came past the bales of hay, I looked toward the cattle pen, to see how Apache was doing.
My heart stopped. He was lying motionless in the dirt. Fiona said hee-haw and he didn’t move. I quickly walked up and said, “Apache?” In what I’m sure was a stricken pet-owner voice.
I’m okay, mom. See? I’m trying to be funny and stepping in my dish.
He flipped his head up an whinnied. Whew. But, had he foundered? Could he stand up? Did I have to call the vet? He answered that question by hauling himself to his feet and shaking. He’d just been napping.
He’s up and eating!
By that time, I’d called poor Sara, who said, “You do know they lie down, right?” But she understood why I’d panicked.
Actually he is walking marginally better today. He’s still not great, though.
Fiona always stays close.
Meanwhile, Fiona kept nudging me. I turned to see what her problem was just in time to see a little black butt slipping into her water tub. Vlassic was apparently hot.
The tub, the water, the dog, all black.
Fiona was not amused to see him in HER water, but I went straight from my fear for Apache and his feet to laughing maniacally at the dog. That was great.
That was NOT funny. Also, this pen is too small.
We fed the other horses, who are on their best behavior, then went back to chicken world to get today’s eggs.
We’re over here, being good, eating our own food.
All the ladies and Bruce were fine, but there were no eggs. Then, on the ground, I saw this:
That is one small egg!
What the..? I went to the Googles and found that Ginger had laid what is called a fairy egg! They are tiny eggs, usually with no yolk. They are also usually lighter or darker than a hen’s usual egg.
They happen when something disturbs a hen’s reproduction process. Well, of course! Ginger and Bertie were quite disturbed by being cut off from their pen and all those new pullets showing up.
We will have to see if Bertie pops out a fairy egg tomorrow. Little do they know, but tomorrow they get a new boyfriend. Oooh. Don’t tell them.
We never know what we will find at the Pope house, which is probably true any time you renovate an old place like this. Examples include the arched opening between Lee and Kathleen’s offices and the window in my office that faces out into the hallway, which told us that was once an exterior wall.
The opening to the left of the ladder was hidden behind plaster and the scary staircase that used to be in the central hallway. Surprise!
Today we found another great surprise. Randy has been upstairs removing the wallpaper and other things from the walls in 3 of the 4 upstairs rooms. The room for Meghan’s office is fine as is. The one above Lee’s office has some trim to take down. We are making that the conference room, since it’s the biggest room. We’ll paint it the terracotta color we used on the back downstairs wall.
The future conference room. The carpet has been removed and most of this stuff is gone. The floor under the carpet is great. All we have to do is paint the walls.
The last room is the future storage room. It had wallpaper on every wall, all of which had water damage. Even the ceiling had wallpaper on it, which looked pretty darned awful. So, it had to go.
This shows the wallpaper on the ceiling. Ick.
I went upstairs to see what was going on, and saw that Randy had just gotten started. What? The walls weren’t plastered in that room; they are just shiplap! And wait a minute…the ceiling isn’t the brown beadboard that the other three rooms have. Whoa.
When I first saw the wall and a glimpse of the ceiling.
The minute I realized what the room would look like, I made sure Kathleen had seen it, too. Randy was sure to inform us that Lee said he would put drywall on the walls, so we’d better not contradict the boss. Ha ha, we laughed. We all have a say in this project!
Note that there was once a stove in the room. That hole goes to the chimney.
At lunch we showed these photos and explained how we’d love to keep it in its original shape. Of course, Lee and Chris were fine with it (duh, it will save money for Lee and time for Chris!).
It’s a fascinating collection of colors, but pretty coll on the ceiling.
This happy news made up for the fact that we don’t get the Big Sander until tomorrow, which delays the floor starting. Our trusty team will just have to work on the weekend, meaning I’ll get to help, too.
Here are some more photos of the room, freshly devoid of wallpaper. It should clean up nicely.
Three colors of ceiling.
This is the closet door. To the right is a door that leads to Meghan’s office. Convenient.
All the upstairs rooms have nice transoms.
Remnant of one of the previous wallpapers that were on the walls. I guess they never had plaster.
Looking out of the room
These windows were once exterior windows and are original. Now they look out on the stairwell.
I do love a good surprise. I wonder what new surprises the Ross house will hold? We close on Thursday!
The Hermits' Rest 