We All Fall Down

I should give you a little background on the farm. What you see below is only part of the property. There is a brick house and many more buildings on the other side of the road not seen in the picture below. The farm was split up when my mother-in-law died using the road as a dividing line and this is part of what we are getting. My husband's brother lives in the brick house and will be getting all of the property on the other side of the road.

Here's an aerial view taken in 1982. It doesn't look like that any more. It has suffered many years of neglect at the hands of my brother-in-law. He has lived on and "managed" the farm for many years. The only thing he "managed" to do was ruin things with his laziness.



This is what the red barn looks like now:



It fell down about 15 years ago and the lazy slob who "managed" the farm just left it there in a heap. So now we're left with the daunting task of cleaning up the mess.

Water & Running Update

The County came out to the farm today and started digging a hole hoping to find the valve to shut off the water. If they can't find it, they're going to install a new valve. Meanwhile, water is still running in the basement of the small house. One of my co-workers said when we put an ad in the paper to rent the house, we can advertise it as havng an indoor pool. No kidding.

On the bright side, we've got a plumber coming tomorrow, so we should have running water!! And just in time, I say, since we are going to be spending all next week there.

I did speed work at the track last night with my running group. It felt pretty good, considering I had just put in a 10 hour day at work. Tomorrow night is a 5 mile run with the group, and then I'm on my own all next week. I need to do a 16 mile long run while we're at the farm. Wish me luck. I don't have a running route there, so I guess I'll just set my Garmin and run till it says I've gone 8 miles, then head back. There's a really nice trail that runs by the farm, but it might be a little spooky if I go in there alone. Maybe we should name the farm Spooky Hollow.

Flooring

I just went digital in May, so I'm still learning the features of my new camera. I lowered the resolution on the camera to VGA and snapped this picture of some laminate samples we have picked out. Hubby decided we are getting rid of all the carpet in both of the farm houses and replacing them with one of these. My order of preference is from left to right. We both agree we don't like the one on the far right.

Weekend Update

This past weekend I had my goddaughter and her cousin come for a visit and we went to Storybook Gardens. The girls are 7 and 4, just the perfect age to enjoy this place. We were there for most of the afternoon. I think the most fun they had was at the splash pad.

I got up early on Saturday morning to get my run in before my company arrived. I was scheduled for a 10 mile run, but decided to do 12, as I missed my long run last week due to problems with my Achilles tendons. I left the house at 7:10 am and it was chilly out! But it was perfect running weather. I ran downtown from my house and into the park system. The washrooms in the park are supposed to open at 8:00 am, but they never do. Just before my turnaround point, I ran by a washroom, and it was still locked. I was starting to think I would have to go a little off course and find a Tim Horton's, but on my way back, I noticed the men's washroom was open. I checked the women's, and it was still locked. WTF? So I thought, oh well, I'll go in the men's, and I did. I was alone in there. I don't know what I would have done if some guy had come in to use the urinal!! All in all, the run felt good and I was home before 9:30 am, so I could start getting food ready for my company.

My friends showed up about 11:30. We visited for a bit, had lunch, and then off to Storybook Gardens. This was my first visit, and I have to say, it's a little over rated, but like I said earlier, the girls loved it, so who am I to judge? The most fun I had was watching the seals get fed. They are so cute. If I knew how to lower the resolution in my digital pictures, I'd post some cute seal pictures. Oh, yeah, and we saw a great blue heron in one of the ponds. We thought it was a statue at first, because it wasn't spooked when we got near it. I snapped some really good pictures of him. I love great blue herons.

My company left after breakfast on Sunday morning, and we made a date to go through a corn maze in a couple of weeks. Since my kids are grown up, it's fun to have a couple of little kids around so I have an excuse to do this kind of stuff.

I spent Sunday afternoon doing a little gardening and visiting with my daughter, "Rapid", who came over to do laundry and wash her car. Hubby arrived later in the afternoon and gave us an update on his adventures at the farm - still no running water.

As usual, the weekend went by too fast, and now here it is Monday morning, and I have to get ready for work. Ever hear that song by Loverboy, "Everybody's Working for the Weekend"? That's how I feel.

Water, Water, Where's the Water?

My beloved husband (BH) is at the farm trying to get a leaky pipe fixed. We discovered a leak in the pipe before the water meter that leads into the small house. The County has been out to the farm three times and cannot find the valve to shut the water off. It's buried somewhere in a bean field. Meanwhile, we have a steady stream of water running in the basement. That house has a dirt floor in the basement, so the water is not really damaging the house, but still, we don't know how long it has been leaking.

Someone from the County left a voice mail message on our home phone here in the city, but BH is at the farm with the cell phone turned off, so it's impossible to get in touch with him unless I drive for an hour and a half to tell him in person. I can only hope that he will give them a call when he sees no progress has been made.

Once the water is turned off, we need to get a plumber in to the fix the leak. We also have at least three broken pipes in the big house that need to be fixed before we have running water there. We spent last weekend there without any water. It was a little like back country camping, but with a nicer bed.

I'm still trying to figure out this blog thing so no pictures yet.

Welcome to my blog!

This is my first ever blog posting. My husband recently inherited a ramshackle farm, so we will be dividing our time between life in the city and weekend farm life. We've been renovating the city house for 13 years - yeah, we're slow - and the farm needs major renovations.

In addition, I'm an avid runner and wannabe triathlete. It will be interesting to see how well I juggle my time.

I'm still learning this blog thing, so stayed tuned. I'll post more when I get some things figured out.