The walls come tumbling down
Yesterday was spent ferrying the dotter off to a “Fun Meet” at her gymnastics place (what the heck do you call it? “Gymnasium” doesn’t quite work.) for the entire morning. Everyone who participated got a trophy (at least the ribbons were awarded based on points). Oy! None of my photos turned out well. Oy! The dotter had fun–hey! And even though she needed prompting as to what came next, her floor routine was the best of her group.
Gratuitous video:
Today…today, OmegaDad and I spent scaring ourselves by removing the old wall to the outer part of the “stable” and framing in the new wall. Why bother? Well, just as a quick graphic showing the reason, we have the “foundations” of the two pieces on either side of the “door”:
It’s a miracle that thing has actually stayed upright (note, I do not say it has actually been plumb, or level.) Not to mention that the cross-bracing on the back of these pieces of wall were cribbed* to within an inch of their lives by the previous horsie tenants.
Anyway, tomorrow’s post is going to be a pictorial history which will no doubt bore my readers to tears, but it’s history, dammit, and we have a very bad habit of taking dumpy stuff and turning it into nice looking stuff, and having no “before” or “during” pictures to point to.
While we were doing this (by “we”, I mean that OmegaDad did all the manly-man work, while I climbed ladders, held boards, helped measure, and fetched and carried pens, hammers, crowbars, drills, nails, and screws), we came across a surprise inside the upper portion of the wall–to wit, an ancient, dried-up hornet nest:
It was so pretty that I had to take close-ups:
Inside this splendid creation were dead old yellowjackets, mummified eggs, and the honeycomb-shaped cells:
I thought it was fascinating. Believe me when I say I do not find a live hornet or wasp fascinating; they terrify me. Yellowjackets I can cope with, and a long-abandoned nest filled with wasp-y cadavers actually makes me feel very good: they are dead! DEAD! AND GONE! Bwahahaha!
The dotter was very patient and hardly whined at us at all (it’s that maturity thang coming into play), so I rewarded her by hauling her off to the local lake for an hour. Unfortunately, while it was toasty warm at our house, sheltered from the breeze as it is, the lake area was breezy and a bit cool, and the lake itself was still icy cold. Given that three weeks ago, there was still ice there, this is no surprise.
*Non-horse folk: “Cribbing” is when a bored horse chews whatever it can reach with its mouth.
posted in Alaska, Garden, Gymnastics, OmegaDad, OmegaDotter, OmegaMom, Wildlife | 5 Comments
