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.

Ever feel like there’s just too much going on and you’re so far behind on every little thing you’ll never catch up?  I’m there right about now.  And on top of it I can’t help throwing more and more projects into the mix.

For example…..though I was having fun working on the Bird in Hand Mittens

I couldn’t help but start on Oona’s spring sweater:

And while that’s in progress, why not start repainting the whole house?

I decided I wanted a more colonial look – I just love those old houses with their milkpaint woodwork.  I started papering the bottom half of the walls in the front room under the chair rail (it’s a wallpaper that’s made to mimic wainscoting) and then began the dreadfully laborious task of painting ALL the white trim downstairs.  It’s going to take me forever and a day, but I’ve been working on it as I can and I am really liking the results.

I had plenty of time over the weekend with it – another snow storm dropped about a foot of snow on us.  I have to admit I wasn’t expecting it, since we already had one big storm this year and in the decade or so I’ve lived in Virginia we’ve never gotten more than one big snow a year.  Of course I stocked up on baking supplies anyway once they forecast it, and the kids loved it.

Then Sunday came and the power went out.  ALL DAY.  Thank goodness for the fireplace!

Honestly I rather enjoy a good excuse to relax in the quiet and read or knit, but the kids were going rather stir crazy all day and not having water (because our well has an electric pump) was a definite pain.  I also can’t believe how dependent I have become on the internet.  Sad.

So for a good 7 hours or so we did our best to entertain ourselves.

It worked out alright but I am not eager to try it again any time soon.  Not unless I’ve got one of those old timey wood cookstoves and a big supply of bottled water! I will admit we did have one cheat – my ipod was fully charged and we had plenty of batteries for the speaker dock, so we had music all day.  I think that is what kept us sane.

Now the power has returned and there are lights to knit by and a stove to cook on and tv to watch, but I need the snow to be gone as well.  I have a grim job to do and it can’t be done with frozen ground.

We found poor Mr. Milo under my bed last night and he had passed away.  I can’t tell you how badly I feel because I can’t say for sure how long he’d been there – a day?  2?  I know I saw him 3 days ago, but since then…….

He was old-ish and had rather bad arthritis in his back legs so he wasn’t able to walk very well and preferred hiding out under beds.  He was a great cat but very shy and not one to be seen regularly.

Thanks for spending the last 13 or so years with us, Milo.

Oh these last weeks………how trying to my nerves have they been.

The biggest issue we have had is due to the almost 3 feet of snow we got right before christmas.  It piled up all over the electric fence and pulled the wires rather badly.  Half the fence was buried for weeks and we ended up turning off the electric to avoid shorting the whole system.  Everything seemed okay for a few weeks.  Then Milkshakes decided to make a break for it.  Once she realized there was no “shock” to be felt she started ramming the mesh fence until she broke through it.  One time we found her standing on the back deck looking for some company.  Poor Jerry was pacing along the inside of the fence humming like mad for her.  He wasn’t about to test the fence, not after the first time he touched it and it brought him to his knees.  Poor guy.

So, one trip to Lowe’s for additional steel posts later and we spent a cold day repairing the fence and strengthening up the roof of their shelter to get through the rest of the winter.  I’d like to see Miss Goaty pants get through it now.

One project down…….8 million more to go.

Next the chickens decided to get all crazy.  Nothing horrible happened but we have a new “alpha” rooster (my Ruby, now Rubert….) and poor Mr. P-Roo has been relegated to a beat-up bottom of the pecking order chicken.  He looked pretty rough at first and I was worried about how long before I’d have to separate them permanently, but so far it seems to be more or less ok.

In the midst of fixing the fence and worrying about the chickens Oona has taken her “into everything” to a new level.  First, she decided her bangs were far too long for her taste.  And voila!  Now she’s got a baby mullet!

I was (and still am) so upset.  I was waiting for her bangs to grow out so I oculd even out her hair better and make a nice shoulder length bob.  Now….like I said – mullet.  I have pulled out some pretty fabrics and elastic so I can make her some bandanas until it grows out.  Lord I hope she’ll wear them.

Then there’s the chest freezer.  It (stupidly) has the control dial on the front near the floor and to Oona this was a boon from the gods.  She kept turning the dial down to “off” and whenever I’d go into the freezer I’d wonder why everything was so mushy.  So I thought to myself that I’d fix her right good and I put a strip of duct tape over the dial.

Not so much.

I went to put away groceries and all the veggies were mushy.  Oona had pulled off the tape and turned the dial back to off.  We  had to drill a screw there so the dial can no longer be turned at all.

As for the pantry……we could not keep her out of that for anything.  The wasted food……oh the wasted food.  I then made the mistake of allowing Paul to pick out a lock for the doors.

One very expensive purchase later – a keypad lock.  I hate how it looks but it keeps Oona out, that’s for sure.  No more wasted food.

Now, while we’re in the kitchen I’ll tell you about the plumbing.  I think I’ve already mentioned that our upstairs plumbing is bad – our whole ceiling downstairs will need to be replaced and the plumbing all redone.  That’s pretty sad for a house that was built in 2004.  Last night I discovered that the pvc pipe under the sink in the kitchen is busted and leaking.  WHY???  I can’t even figure out how or why this would have happened, since no one goes under the sink for anything.  It had no reason to fail.  I’ll tell you……whoever buys this house after we finally get sick of it will have basically a completely re-built home.

At least there is news on the knitting front to keep the edge off.  I went stash diving and started on Kate Gilbert’s Bird in Hand Mittens, which seem to be taking me forever, but at least they’re fun to work.  I also dredged up wool for a Drive-Thru sweater for Oona.

That green is a celery – like green and the pink is a bit lighter than it looks in the photo.  Oona is very excited – she’s been coveting Neve’s sweater since that was completed.  I am going to start on it today even though I am still working on the mittens.  I am a non – monogamous knitter.  Oh well.