Brave Kitty

Kitty (AKA Captain Jack Sparrow) is either a very brave kitty, or a very stupid kitty. He is mostly blind. But that doesn't stop him from trying to be a normal kitty. The water heater at my shop sits on a ledge above the basement stairs. Its high up enough for a tall person to not bump their heads when going down stairs. "Brave" Kitty does not like spiders. In fact he freaks out if he encounters one. But after I cleaned up the spider webs around the water heater Kitty decided its a nice place to hang out. It is a precarious journey, but Kitty feels his way along the narrow ledge to and from the water heater.

Hiking, with dogs

I don't get out enough. People are always talking about places around here I've never been. I am always either at work or working on my house. So last weekend, we packed up all the dogs and the 4 of us met some friends to go hiking in the woods. We met out at my house first then drove from there. It was a beautiful hiking trail and only about 5 miles from my house! It had lots of water that the dogs could go in. We all kind of hiked at our own pace, me at Crue's pace. Seth and Mike were in the fast group and Crue was determined he was not going to be left behind. But alas his walker, me, was just not in shape enough to keep up with the younger set. I was in the middle with Jenna and 2 of the friends behind me. After awhile of being pulled I decided to wait up till Jenna caught up with me. She had Reign with her and that made Crue feel better. I also had Meg with me who doesn't pull at all but I guess Crue wanted to hike with the guys and not the girls. Most of the time I was by myself though and Meg really did a good job of following the trail which was completely hidden by all the leaves. I just let the dogs lead the way and when we came to a fork in the road I let Meg decide which way to go. I just told her "go find Seth". My friend later asked why I said go find Seth instead of go find Mike. I said mainly because Meg probably wouldn't want to find Mike..LOL Mike is kind of the "special" dog in our pack.  We had a lot of fun and it was an absolutely beautiful day for a hike in the woods. We saw deer, raccoon and probably fox prints at the water's edge. All in all we hiked about 5 miles. I figure Crue worked the hardest though. It was nice being pulled up the hills, I'd let him go on the downhill sometimes so he wouldn't pull me down with him. I guess I could teach him to walk properly on a leash, but my dogs are so seldom on a leash and I liked the extra help walking up the hills. So it was nice getting out of our routine and comuning with nature.
As usual, only a couple pictures even though we did have the camera with us. So here is part of our group. We never did meet up with Jill, Carl, Jim and the dogs, Seth, Mike and their dog, Lucky (a big black Lab). Jill says they had a great time and Mike was the perfect dog, Seth was the jerk. Figures. If I'm not there Seth thinks he's in charge.

ok, house updates

I've been hesitating posting anything more about my house because #1 I keep forgetting to take my camera out there, and #2 Although we've made some great progress, I just wanted more before I posted again. But I decided an update was in order, so here it is.

We finally have gotten the whole living room and kitchen drywalled. Jenna's room is completely insulated and has the new window and would have been drywalled, at least partially, but it was raining and we couldn't transport the drywall in the rain. My room is partially insulated, has one new window and still needs one more. So without further ado...I give you before and afters.

The kitchen before (a way long time before) The laminate flooring you see here was what we put down (when the previous owners were still living there) as a requirement for the loan. Stupid as we tore everything out anyway, but they required all this superficial stuff to be done and of course the owners weren't going to put one dime in so while we worked putting in this flooring in the kitchen and carpet in the bedrooms and baseboard heaters, they sat on their uh duffs watching tv and eating little Debbie's cakes.

This is pic is after we took out the first 3 of 6 layers of flooring. Obviously they had just kept putting on a new layer instead of replacing the old properly.

And this is what the kitchen looks like 10 mos later. We removed the one window in there to give me more space. The door we put in is window all the way down and its going to be an open kitchen so it has plenty of light.

The living room before. We had already redone all the electrical and flooring in this picture. But the walls and windows were not done yet.

After.

Well, that's about it for now. Except the Chicken Coop!

It is mostly done and I keep all 6 in there. Oh, but it isn't the chickens I keep in there yet.

It makes a really good kennel for now. I bought 9 bales of orchard grass hay and the dogs love to stay nice and snug and warm in there while we work on the house. I've decided since the building is so big, I'm going to divide it in half and the chickens can have 1/2 and I can store stuff on the other side. I'm really still hesitant about putting the chickens out there before I'm living there. Plus its getting cold now and they aren't used to the weather. Plus I'm getting about 6 eggs per day out of 6 chickens because I can control the lighting. I wouldn't get as many if they are outside.

Well, that is it for my update. Jenna and I did mow down the back lawn yesterday so the well pump guy can get in there to fix my well pump and give me running water again. We also put up some good fencing between my property and the golf course. I need to take down a couple dead/dying trees before I can finish that job though. No pics of the fence, I keep forgetting to bring my camera.