Work Week

Working (part 1)

This week, my oldest little brother (first of three) came down to help out around the place in preparation for little Baker’s arrival - which I am expecting at the end of the month, even though the due date is March 5. Last weekend, my dad and youngest brother came down to get the process started for bathroom work with that oldest brother of mine, and now we can take baths (though not showers) in our own tub! D has been putting in long days at work, as usual, but W has been filling holes in the driveway, working on the bathroom walls to prepare for painting, tearing apart pallets to use for lumber on walls, and helping me around the place. It is really handy having the little blue Sport Trac I used to use around, for I washed four loads of laundry in two days this week and it wouldn’t have been possible without it - I apparently can’t handle walking a few hundred feet with a full wet load of laundry anymore. At least, I can’t handle it very well.

D’s truck is still in pieces under the hood as we await the parts to fix it. The project: replace the water pump. As a result, he has been driving his work truck, a white ‘06(?) Chevy Silverado, for two weeks. While it is nice to have a reliable vehicle around, we cannot wait to have our own truck back. After all, we can’t keep using the company’s equipment for ourselves.

Critters

Last Sunday, the 29th, his father and I went and looked at a purebred, unregistered white Labrador Retriever puppy. We decided we liked the big eight-week-old male, and brought him home as a surprise for my beloved husband. D has not had a good hunting dog in a year, and so I hope that by next season this one, who has proven already to have better brains than the last puppy he got (now a 1 1/2yo who is just learning to fetch after being shown by a Catahoula cross female puppy), is ready to go out and be a working dog. It is also nice that our baby will have a dog to grow up with. This little guy is very much a person-dog, and not a threat to the cats, either... though they aren’t so sure about that. He tries to play with Cookie, because he is used to playing with cats, but the latter hasn’t played with dogs and is kinda scared of something four times his size. Kelly just avoids him. The puppy was named Duke on Tuesday evening, and now the task begins of having him grow into the regal moniker.


Dingus has yet to be weaned or gelded, as we have not yet decided where to take him for the operation and there is no good separate pen to keep either him or his dam for weaning. He has a solid winter coat on him, and does not rely on his mother for food - she is simply a “snack bar”. His diet now primarily consists of hay and grass.

Mandy is going home on Sunday, and at last we will have the “nightmare” (as I like to call her - she is black, has mental issues, and is a mare...) gone from our pasture. Dingus’s older sister, the rising three Kaylen, has begun picking up habits here and there from the unruly eleven-year-old.

Sue J is also a mental wreck, but once I get back to seriously drilling her she should be fine. At the moment, I am nearing thirty-six weeks of pregnancy and am not in the condition to work with a potential disaster right now. Removing that nightmare from her life should help.

Jack is being fed grain in an attempt to keep weight on him this winter while we still do not have any pasture ready for the horses to move into. Access to hay should be easier for him once Mandy leaves - she does not appreciate sharing bales of hay and will, on occasion, kick everybody else (except buddy Sue) away. Even so, two bales of hay have to be set out every week or two for the six-horse herd, and half the time another one for Sneaky in his pen. Once the pasture fences around the house are up, Sneaky will move out of the arena (where he’s been for a year or so) and into the front pasture. We will have a bit more fencing to do to get our final back pasture actually done... a fence needs to be torn down and moved and another one put up. Then the pasture the horses are in now can rest, and we will have two more pastures to put them in. It could be a while before any of that comes to fruition, though. All the focus is currently on the house to get it ready for the baby.

Working (part 2)

Walls in the living room

Speaking of, the living room finally has all of its walls up. I finally took the first bath in this house on Tuesday night, and it felt good. While W has been helping put the walls up and sealing off the bathtub so it can be used, not to mention working on lumber for the spare room and laundry room walls, insulating pipe, and helping around the place in general, I have been focusing mainly on cleaning and cooking. The master bedroom is cleaner, the spare room has been cleaned up (again), dishes and laundry have been paid special attention to, and so far I’ve managed to keep W fed. Leftovers are the lunch plan and duck, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, and pizza, among other foods, have made the supper table.

We can use our tub!!

It’s been a long, hard week, but the feeling of productiveness has more than made up for it. My beloved does what he can when he is home, and while he is gone I try to do as much as I can and show progress being made on my own. W doing things is one thing... it is what he is here to do. But for me, growing more tired by the day and getting larger and closer to delivering our first child, to actually do more than one or two things besides the typical chores is enormous. Next week, when I will be alone again during the day, I will do little things and take lots of hot baths while maintaining the place. But, motivated in part by my brother’s presence, I am going above and beyond my usual capabilities this week to prepare for the arrival of little Baker. Monday and Tuesday were my extraordinarily productive days, and then I rested in comparison from Wednesday through today to gear up for one more busy weekend. In about four weeks (or less!) our little baby will be in this world, and we will be as prepared as possible.

Mud in the bathroom! 

Stacks of pallet lumber in the spare room

The pallet bed frame in the spare room (occupied by W)

As part of preparation, my baby shower is on Sunday, the very day I officially become 36 weeks along. It is at D’s grandma’s house, and I am excited to see what we will be given. There will be another baby shower at the local church after little Baker’s arrival, because (s)he is a surprise and apparently it will be easier on some people to get stuff knowing what it is for.

As the due date gets closer, I find myself mentally gearing up for the rigors of labor. I have no illusions about it. It will be difficult and painful, though I do not expect it to be unusually so. The labor and delivery process will be long and excruciating, but the reward will be like nothing else. I cannot wait to see my child in my husband’s arms as he looks down on his firstborn. It is a dream I have carried for many months, and very soon it will come true. One painful process to endure, and then I will see what we have waited these nine months for. It will be worth it in the end.

Arrogate Sprouts Wings (Again)

Arrogate after his dominant Pegasus win

Last Saturday, January 28, Arrogate won the world’s richest race in what turned out to be an anti-climactic race. California Chrome, the six-year-old rival making his final start, finished ninth in a lackluster effort, coming out of the race with a swollen knee. There are now disputes about the final time, but there is no dispute that the gray son of Unbridled’s Song is now America’s richest competitive racehorse, and his earnings are now in the eight-digit range. After losing his debut less than a year ago, he has not lost. He swept a maiden and an allowance before rocketing off to a Travers Stakes record, breaking the win margin record and the Saratoga track record at the same time in his fourth start. It was also his first in stakes company - his first in Grade I company. Nearly two months later, in his next start, he ran down the leading North American money earner to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and two and a half more months later he beat a field of top-notch horses to win the world’s richest race, the Grade I Pegasus World Cup. He did it in fine fashion, and now he has won in three states: California, New York, and Florida. The new task is to keep him in form through November - and keep him from getting hurt. After disputes over the final time, he set his second track record in three starts in the Pegasus World Cup, lowering the nine-furlong Gulfstream record by .03 seconds.

California Chrome at Taylor Made

California Chrome retires to stud now, and he richly deserves it. There are rumors flying about him being considered for a fall 2017/winter 2018 campaign, but he doesn’t need it. He has done more than enough, and it is time for him to retire permanently. Goodbye, old boy, and thanks for the many thrills on the track.

A Heart Full of Love

My sweetheart has been doting on me this week

My husband and I have been married for more than 10 months, now, and it’s been amazing. I cannot wait for the day when we have been married 10 years - or 20, 30, 40, 50.... We intend to grow old together, and the only way we won’t is if one of us doesn’t make it that long. I’m not saying that we won’t have hard times, and that we won’t struggle, just that with God’s help and our own determination to keep our promises, we will make it out of our struggles stronger and better than before. We will reach our first anniversary holding our first child, and my parents will reach their 20th anniversary this year and have their first grandchild. D’s parents will have been married for 27 years this month, days or weeks before their first grandchild debuts. This baby is a milestone in the lives of our close family members, but more than anything it is a milestone for us. It is the first child of what we hope to be many. It is the beginning of our own legacy, and a continuation of the Baker line. In a few years, this child will be running around with his or her little second cousin, Levi (due in June), and terrorizing the squirrels, rabbits, birds, fish, turtles, snakes, spiders, and anything else that moves. Regardless whether it is a crazy boy like his father or a wild tomboy like her mother, this child will be an amazing sight to watch - and probably a little bit terrifying at times, too! Yancey Lane/Kaylee Ann is a much awaited gift from above, and we are so, so blessed! Little one, we cannot wait to meet you!