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Let the bleeding begin

The Deposit has been made.

Let the barn building commence.

Let’s see, things that are going to put a drain on the ol hip pocket:

Barn: (check)
Fence: (still waiting on final damages)
Stalls: (I don’t even want to know)
Barn will need electric: (We have a couple options here, none are cheep)
Barn will need water: (Drilling a well, boo-yeah, that will come later)
Build a Tack Room and Feed Storage: (ooh, my head hurts)
Gravel for driveway: (anyone have spare rocks they don’t need?)

Motorcycles are way cheaper than horses, that’s all I gotta say.

🙂

OK, *most* motorcycles are cheaper than horses, and OK they don’t love you back

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Things are shaping up nicely

We finally got the design of the barn agreed upon.

We finally got the pricing from the lumber yard, and we almost know where we’re going to put it.  Well, we know where, but just not the orientation.  I think we do, but it’s not something you can change later so we need to be sure.

We ended up getting Charlie to build the barn, it should be done in under 3 weeks.  That’s a bonus, we know what kind of work he does.  He built the barn across the street and everyone, including the farmer that farms our land only uses him.

That being said, there is still much to figure out and decide.  How are we doing the stalls?  We building them? or Buying free standing stalls that we can move around later?  Something in between?  What about the fence? We think we know what we’re doing here.  How we going to get electric and water to the barn?  Claudine thinks she can handle not having water out there, but I keep reminding her we don’t have a pickup anymore, and, well, horses drink a lot and dragging 5 gallon buckets around isn’t a lot of fun.

We need a pond, anyone have one we can borrow?  Anyone want to dig one for fun?  Have a bulldozer they don’t need to use for a while?

-Let us know.

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Reds Opening Day!

Wow, it was cold.

I had the pleasure of attending the 2006 opening day game with my buddy Victor. (Thanks Vic) The weather was supposed to be, err, well somewhat poopy. I knew that when I looked in the morning, a slight chance of rain and windy. But I neglected to check the temperature. So I grabbed a jacket, a simple pull-over.
Cincinnati has a huge tradition for opening day. We also had the pleasure of having President Bush throw out the first pitch. What that meant was increased traffic and the land of the free wasn’t so free. We all but got strip searched to enter the stadium. Vic and Michael got relieved of their pocket knives. Micheal’s was especially dangerous, seeing how he was carrying the famous swiss knife “champ”.

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While I somewhat understand this threat on an airplane. I don’t think you’re going to hold a stadium full of people hostage with one of these. What was he going to do trim the Presidents nails or give him the hair cut of death with it? Highly unlikely given all the secret service around.

So on top of the ticket prices, and parking, both had to fork over $15 knives to get in. Where do all these knives go? People also couldn’t take in bottled water. I don’t get it.

President Bush was visible for all of 4.6 minutes. At least he wasn’t embarrassing.

The Reds on the other hand, sheesh.  5 runs in the first inning, it was brutal, but at least they battled back.  But Adam Dunn, Wow.  All I can say is Wow.  Now the official scorrer was a homer that’s for sure and he only notched one error, but he should have had at least 2 maybe 3.

Sure the wind was swirling (rolling my eyes).  That didn’t stop the cubs from robbing us from 3 home runs.  He dropped or didn’t catch 4 catchable balls.  (FIVE) Two in front of him, the one he fell down on, one he didn’t even reach for on the warning track, and one along the line.  He looked bad, very very bad.

All and all though we had a GREAT time.  Great American Ball park is amazing.  The restrooms are not capable of handling a crowd of 40,000 people.  At least not the mens rooms.  In the later stages, all hell broke loose, and if it looked like it would hold liquid it was being used as a urinal.  This included sinks and trash cans.  In one restroom the janitors closet was open and there was a line in there at that sink and the mop basin.  Amazing.  Still the line outside the restroom was far too long considering all the options that were now available.  Who designed this mess?  As a tax payer I want some money back.  Oh wait, I don’t live in Hamilton County.
Did I mention it was cold?  Way cold.  But I’d go again in a minute!

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Attic Part 1 of ???

It’s basically too dark to work in the attic when I get home from work. Well yeah, OK, I *could* put a bunch of lights up there, but hey I’ve been working all day and I’m lazy.

Yesterday I did take a couple of Photos to mark our progress. What you have here is an 1800’s era roof with beams that have sagged at some point in time. Then they slapped some other wood along side of them to help those beams cope. Who knows when. So what we’re doing is placing a 2×4 from the finished part at the top and the wall that’s already exisiting and going to finish the angled ceiling. We’ve set the two end 2×4’s and stretched a couple strings. For the most part we’re good but we’ll have to shave a few of the beams or added on 2×6’s that they added at one time or another. We’ve run a few 2×4’s and that framing nailer is killer.

We’ll attatch what ever it is we’re going to cover this wall with (it aint going to be drywall) to these 2×4’s. Nope, I have no idea yet how I’m going to box around the sky lights. I’ll cross the bridge when I get to it.

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If you have any words of advice, thoughts, tips, words of encouragement, etc.  Please feel free to leave comments.