Today is Sean's Birthday

Today, November 16th, is Sean's birthday - he is 29 today!

29 years ago today at Hvidovre Hospital in Copenhagen, Sean was born. He was a skinny, long baby and he was whisked away to intensive care right after the birth. He was taken to Fuglebakken Children's hospital where he was to spend quite some time while they investigated his symptoms, waited for his heart rate to come down, oh, all so very many things. He had cataracts, he had a heart murmur. He looked so frail and he looked so at risk.

He has come a very long way since then. He and I were just out on a 5 mile walk, Sean is a fit man, ideal weight and good blood pressure, he is healthy and he even has perfect teeth.

Nancy and I have put a lot of work into making things that way. If I can, just this once and in public praise Nancy for her work with Sean - she has cared for him, fussed over him, worried about him and cried about him. She has gone to bat for him in so many locations, she has cleaned him, cleaned up after him and sat with him when he has been sick. In short she has loved the living bejesus out of him.

Between us we have ensured that his diet works, he eats healthy, he gets supplements just to be sure we don't miss anything, he exercises hours per day. It has taken a lot of work and a lot of people have helped.

Today has been a great day.

The horses and the new shelter

It has been months since I posted on this blog. Shame on me indeed. It has been a very busy period for us. We have been trying to build the horse shelter before winter sets in. Not easy to build a good horse shelter whne you are trying to do it on a shoe string budget like ours. We, of course, did not realize that Adams County Colorado requires a building permit for a horse shelter - we did not realize until a building inspector showed up one day to inform us of that wonderful news.

So we had to submit plans, pay for a permit (and the fee was doubled because we had already started work...) and allow our friends in the county to tell us what we would be allowed to do and what we would not be allowed to do. Fortunately it was not radically different from what we planned. But inconvenient of course..

So Nancy and I have been out there - we have been using material Nancy got from auctions and cast off lumber from a local lumber yard (I did mention shoestring budget did I not?) the one thing we are short on right now is the tin for the roof but we are hopeful...

There is a lot of hammering involved and I am finding that the strength I used to put such pride in during my youth has much diminished. My arms feel like Jello on occasion after driving some nails in - a couple of hours of work and ... phew...

But, bit by bit, we are getting it done. Nancy will post some pictures later today I hope.

IN the meantime - Hi-ho, Hi-ho its off to work I go..

The winds of winter approach

This week has seen our first snows at our new place. Last Monday, November 10th - our 30th wedding anniversary - we got between 6 and 8 inches of snow. The land really needed the moisture and Nancy and I got a romantic anniversary evening in front of a roaring fire with wine to toast each other!

Yesterday the snow came, accompanied by 40 mile and hour wind. For a while it was kind of exciting as I tried to leave for work. The first time I tried it was a white out so I crawled my way back while waiitng for daylight. Once daylight appeared I went out again only to find that I-70 had a sheet of ice on it that reduced my speed to a crawl. At that point I thought discretion to be the better part of valor and I called in to work and took the day off.

Sean is not a big fan of the cold. He is an even lesser fan of wind so we were stuck in the house yesterday and he did not get his customary exercises. Today looks to be much better and he and I will be out treading the trails.

The wind does blow out here on the plains and when it picks up speed from Wyoming and cold from Canada it can cut right through you. A sure sign of the coming of the winter for us.

But we do love it - our house is tight against draughts, we have a great fireplace and we have our Christmas planning to keep us looking forward.