Yes, yes I know you’ve all been wondering what’s going on with the bus!  I’ll get to that in a minute.  First we need to play some catch – up.  There’s a lot going on.

I should also mention that since the Winter Olympics is currently running there has been very little accomplished in the way of cleaning, cooking or baking.  I’d simply rather glue my backside to the couch and watch the games.  The winter ones are my favorite – I could honestly take or leave the Summer Olympics.  Call it a side effect of growing up in the Adirondacks.  Did I ever tell you about the time we drove up to Lake Placid when Emily was a toddler?  We drove this cramped little VW Jetta (I don’t care what Paul says – I didn’t like that car, 50 Mpg’s or no) with Emily’s seat in the back, a portable camp potty at her feet, and my poor, poor friend Julie next to her in the back.  Somewhere near Whiteface mountain (and here I must tell you that for a former Olympic venue there is a surprising amount of nothing nearby) Emily’s stomach began to hurt and she had a spell of, shall we say, intestinal “distress”.  The kind that soaked through her clothes, all over her seat and took a whole pack of wipes plus most of a roll of papertowels to clean.  All while she sat on the potty and continued to experience the above mentioned “distress”.   After which we discovered we were out of diapers.  We had to fashion a makeshift covering for her out of a terry cloth rag, the remaining paper towels and duct tape.  My poor friend Julie declined the front seat and suffered the 3 hours back to Glens Falls crammed next to  little stinky Emily.

Whiteface Olympic Mountain

But I digress.

I have instead been focused on knitting Oona’s sweater while rooting on the skiiers and skaters and whatnot. Maddie and I were glued to the men’s speed skating the other night, yelling Oh No!!!!!

Okay, maybe it’s just funny to us.

The week has not been without incident, however.  Sunday morning Emily discovered poor Homie the hen, dead in her nest in the front coop.  She was Emily’s favorite, and both of us took it a bit hard.  I also noticed my poor P-Roo looking unwell, so I brought him inside.  He is currently in a nice little “Chick-infirmary” in the garage (we still had the large dog kennel in storage) and he is doing much better after a round of antibiotics.

Poor dearly deaprted little Homie D Hen

Mr Roo in his sick room

On to Milkshakes – she of the fat belly.  We’re about 99.99% sure is going to be having at least one baby before too long.  Having a new goat baby or two would be great.  However – her mate was much larger than she, meaning we are looking at a difficult birth.  I will be conferring with some experts very soon and weighing my options.  I’ll let you know how all of that goes.  Knowing my luck…..I’d rather not even think about it.

We mustn’t forget Pippa, either.  Anyone want a dog?  A very friendly, but very hyper, very stupid dog?

While we were out clipping goat hooves last night she was busy slamming down baby wipes.  Wanna know how I found out?

I was running late this morning getting ready for a doctor’s appointment and all I had to do before I could finally get out of the house was let the dog out.  She recently decided that since there’s so much snow on the ground the perfect spot for her to do her “business” is right in front of our front steps.  She sat there for quite awhile this morning, straining.  Then I saw that there was something very long and white (well……went in white anyway) hanging from her back end and she couldn’t get it out.

SO.

I had to go out there.  And yank. it. out.  A whole foot and a half length of baby wipes.  Covered in nastiness.  I think I may have vomited in my mouth a little bit.  And I was so late I couldn’t properly clean it all up so there were dog poop – covered baby wipes all over the front steps when I left.  Thank goodness UPS can’t get down our driveway right now.  I’d hate for him to see that.  (yes, it’s been cleaned up now)

I really dislike my dog right now.  And, incidentally, I told you my life was full of more than my fair share of poo.

Ok.  Bus time.

You may recall this picture of the retired Greyhound bus Paul bought last fall.

He broke it.  Something in the back end called a drop box went bad.  I don’t know.  I’ve absorbed more technical jargon for one lifetime and I refuse to take in anymore, thank you.

Broken bus.  Therefore, he bought another one.

This one, accordingly to my husband’s Facebook page (I know, I know) , is a 1984 MCI 9 6V92TA with Allison HT740.  I really didn’t pay attention to any of that.  Two things are important here for me :

A: it’s not converted into an RV yet, so it is titled as a bus.  Which means you need a CDL to drive it.  Guess which one of us has the CDL?  ME!!!!

B: Umm………see those rear wheels?  You know, that whole dual rear axle thing that’s going on?  This bus is 40 feet long – about 5 more feet and a whole extra set of rear wheels more than I’ve ever driven.  I have to somehow get it home from Virginia Beach this weekend.  I’ll be sure to document that trip.  Wish me luck.  I haven’t driven a bus since I was pregnant with Neve.  (That would be 7 years ago now)

Paul is rather excited and impatient to dig into this project and get this land ship converted into a nice home away from home.  I was considering giving him some guest blogger rights to document it, but given that the’s prone to fits of excess technical-ism (that would be where he assumes everyone he speaks to knows exactly how an engine is built and runs….only more so), I am thinking I may take lots of pictures and give the “two sentences or less” version.

Two Sentences or less:  My sister came up with this, because every time you ask Paul a simple question it takes no less than 33 years for him to answer it.  Now she requests he answer her in two sentences or less.

HOWEVER – I am also aware there are people who really like that real technical stuff.  I’ll figure it out and let you know – maybe I’ll add a second page to this site strictly for bus progress.  Stay tuned.