Week Five, Weekend

Well, I have been a student first and a homeowner last all week, but finally this weekend I settled into some real housework. It was actually one of the most fun house days I've had in a while! Having started the hardest part of the dining room floor on Saturday with my dad (using the jigsaw to cut out the vents), I set to work on finishing the floor Sunday afternoon (the morning, incidentally, was full of cleaning and watching Quickie, my horse, gallop around the yard as my friend's dog chased him...!). I was initially pretty frustrated with the floor, because something about the room or the boards or something was making the boards not fit together well. Basically as soon as I would get one end tucked into the groove, the other end would pop right out. After playing that game for about 10 minutes with one small section, I was very relieved when help arrived in the form of an attractive young suitor--the best kind of helper, really. Anyway, the two of us got the job done rather well,with the except of two small places where the boards didn't fit together well. Rome wasn't built in a day, but what they don't tell you is that it also wasn't built by perfectionists. So I was quite happy just to have all the boards laid. Here are is how the floor turned out:
That is my cat, Zooey, in the foreground. I am looking forward to getting the shoe molding up tomorrow to complete the room. I hope that I am able to figure out how to install it by then!

In addition to laying the floor, we also got a lot done in my recent quest for a pasture buddy for Quickie. He is a miniature stallion, which makes it harder to find a friend for him. I was thinking about getting a goat for him to hang out with, but then I became enticed with the idea of getting a riding horse. As vegans say, this would allow me to grab two berries with the same hand, as Quickie would get a friend, and I would get to have a horse to ride. So we went to visit a horse named Sophie who is a rescue horse at a nearby farm animal sanctuary. Here is Sophie:

She is beautiful! I was able to rider her at her foster family's home. She rides without a bit, which means she is well trained and very calm. I really enjoyed riding her. There is more info about Sophie and other horses that I'm considering at Happy Trails. I also met up with some old friends quite serendipitously when I was buying hay through Craigslist. It turned out that the person who I emailed for hay was actually a couple who I used to ride with! It was great luck that we met up again, and I look forward to possibly riding with them in the future.

I also wanted to add a quick picture of all the work that my dad has done to make my barn, pasture, and yard beautiful for my horse (s!). Check out the before and after:


And last but not least, here is a picture of Quickie enjoying his new home: