Construction Continues

We're still working on the bathroom, and it's coming along at a nice steady pace. We have the walls buttoned up with new insulation and drywall, and the new shower is now installed and working as well! Yay!!!! (I have to admit that I was getting really sick and tired of using the kitchen sink to wash my hair in...)

I've been so proud of my husband throughout this whole remodeling thing. He's a really sharp guy when it comes to plumbing, electrical, and construction stuff in general. He's able to do a lot of "handy man" work around our place himself, which saves us a boatload of money in the long run. In the past 12 years that we've owned our home, we've only had to call a professional out one time to come and fix something that we couldn't do ourselves - (to pump the septic tank). That isn't too bad of a track record for the number of years that we've been here.

Craig has re-plumbed the entire bathroom and has installed new electrical lighting throughout most of the house. He gets a lot of practice troubleshooting electrical components with his day job, so I'm not too worried about him wiring stuff in our home. (He has to put new wiring harnesses - and also repair old ones - on cars and motorcycles on a daily basis.)

Also, after measuring the room both of us have made a corporate decision to get a different proportioned tub. We're going to attempt to stuff "a biggun" in there! I'm really excited about that...

He's Done!

Craig and I drove up to Joseph yesterday and picked up the bronze at the foundry.  I was really excited to see him!!!!  The guy from Valley Bronze called about a week beforehand and said that the piece was very close to getting ready for the final step of patina work, so Monday would be a good time for us to come up and watch it "get the dunk" into the color solution. 


It was really interesting to see the process of adding color to metalwork.  "Gribble" a.k.a. "Gribble the Scribble" - (the goofy name that I came up with for the sculpture...) was plunged into a sulphur acid tank multiple times and then heated to 360 degrees with a blow torch.  After he was good and sizzling hot, the foundry painter dobbed some special patina paint on him with a huge paintbrush.  It was fascinating to watch the paint sizzle into the metal like a hot frying pan skillet!  The whole process of adding color to the bronze took about an hour and was really educational.  I don't think that I'll ever have the heart it takes to confidently handle a blow torch for patina work like some artists can - as fire really scares me! 


But Gribble turned out really good.  The goofy artifact style Akhal Teke is now on our mantle in the house.  I've started work on a second bronze slated for 2014, which will be in a completely different style from this guy. 

I've caught a slight bronze bug and now I'm hooked....       

Remodel

Craig and I have been remodeling our bathroom for the last week, which translates into: "the Mayfields are being total lunatics and tearing the hell out of one of the most important rooms in their house". We have no other bathroom, this is it. So we are stuck trying to hurry as fast as we can to get it done. We've gone more than a week without a shower, and both of us are starting to get really tired and cranky of washing our hair and other bodily parts in the kitchen sink...

Remodeling a room in a house is always time consuming and most often times full of surprises, especially when you have an old house - like ours. This was supposed to be a somewhat "simple" type of project for us after we got our feet wet with a major remodeling of our kitchen two years ago. Bathroom, not a problem. Well, yeah.... right. We were kindly introduced to some dry rot foundation issues when we removed the tub. Surprise!

Luckily both Craig and I are not afraid of a challenge and have fixed most of the problem. After sawing a huge hole in the bathroom floor, we got underneath the house and cut out part of the seal board next to the concrete stem wall. (We had to jack the floor boards up off of the house to do this), and have eliminated our foundation rot issues in that area. Now we just have to fix the rot problem that's underneath the window and replace the 2 x 4's in the wall. We're buttoning it up slowly but surely.

Our tub used to be where the hole in the floor is in the photo - hence where the dry rot issues were. We had one of those old dual purpose "shower/tub" types of setups in there, basically stand in the tub while you take a shower. I regret not snapping a picture of the room before we started remodeling it. It will look totally different (and much bigger) when it's finally done. The sink will not be there either - but I will get more into that in another post.

A view of the new wall that we're building to make the room bigger. Also, our new tub and shower base are shown in the photo as well. They will be separate entities this time around! Yay!

I'm not sure if anybody can read my chicken-scratch plans, but it's a layout for what will happen. We are moving walls, covering doors, ripping up floors, and other assorted mayhem on this project...

Western Dressage

Today Octopelle and I tried western dressage for the first time, and it was a blast! Tony Jackson gave a clinic at the CREC arena in Irrigon and I went to see if my horse and I would like it. (Never hurts to try something new.) I had been considering attempting a western dressage course for a few months, but hadn't found any events that were close enough to home that also offered a "beginners class" for people who just want to try it. (I damned sure didn't want to show up at an official dressage show and make a complete fool of myself - so this clinic was a PERFECT opportunity to see if we would like to do this or not.)

Octopelle seemed to take to "cowboy" dressage like a fish takes to water. He loved it, and we recieved some good lessons and instruction from Tony before attempting to do our test. After all of the group participants in the clinic got a private lesson, we each got to try an actual test depending on our horses skill levels. Ox and I did the Introductory Level Test I, which was all three gaits in a fairly simple pattern: walk, working trot, and canter. I have to admit that we need just a tiny bit more work going "deep into the corners", but everything else was great. Our collection and circles were really very good.

Tony has said that there will most likely be more of these little clinics in the future, and I'm really excited to hear that. I'd love to do more of it!

Tony Jackson instructing a rider in a class, above. Tony is an accredited dressage competitor, instructor, and judge. He has traveled the world with the Royal Lippizaner Stallions show for several years. He's a really fun guy and an excellent teacher!

Mary and her quarter horse gelding "Bugs". (Mary and Bugs were one of our main rivals at the Earn Your Spurs show series in Kennewick, along with Albert Ellis and his mare "Glory".)

It was a very fun day!

Jubilee Ranch Ride

On the 5th we headed to Prescott WA. to the Jubilee Ranch endurance ride. It was absolutely gorgeous weather! Sunny and a nice mild temperature. This ride was so awesome because it was very close to home, barefoot friendly trails, and the loops went through an apple orchard. (The apples were totally wonderful - I spent most of the time stuffing my face with sweet delicious apple snacks while Tommy blasted through the trees at a high trot.) Really fun stuff!


Jessica Andersen photo.  The snake river is in the background.



The bay "giraffe" looking at riders coming down from the hill.  He got a chance to cut loose and go pretty fast at this ride, and it was a nice vacation for him from doing slow western pleasure work in the arena. 



A *very cute* Eberl arabian foal resin "Pearl" recently completed in the studio to a deep dark chocolate baby bay.  She has some subtle "baby fuzz" highlights to her coat and is done in one of my all-time favorite colors! Such a cute foal sculpture.  Owned by Carole Ingram.

Frustrated, embarrassed, disappointed, and fed-up. This is how I feel at the moment. I had a long written out explaination of why I was feeling this way about certain events, but I'll do everybody a favor and not go through with posting it.