Another door; more windows; winter storm warning. Setback recovery work starts tomorrow. Shares needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

First regular entry door. Yes, that's the ham hiding behind it, face pressed to the glass.

It's been a hell of a day. The wind has blown almost nonstop, and I don't mean a little breeze, either. Only the smallest of flurries; if we have to have the wind, we should at least get the benefit of the moisture, but no. It keeps going around us on all sides.

We buried Cinder yesterday. Miskwaki came up lame this morning, but apparently it's a nothing more than a bruise. The horse vet checked Shade out, and all signs point to a nasty abscess in the heel, not at all uncommon this time of year, what with the snow and ice and frozen ground that melts into muck in the day and turns rock-hard again at night. An abscess would be great, because the alternative is something along the lines of a coffin-bone fracture, and that would be unspeakably bad. She responded a bit to the drawing soak today already, though, so our money's on abscess. And a pricey scrip for Raven whose hip was damaged when he was hit by a vehicle many years ago. He's nine now, and starting to feel the effects of arthritis in it, especially in this weather, so she's trying him on something new that's supposed to be much easier on a dog's organs (important, since we lost both BearGirl and Hunter to ghastly complications from Meloxicam).

But it's been an expensive day.

They got another small window installed today, plus this big one:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

It took all four of them to get it into the frame. José is working on it from the inside; in the photo, from left: Wings, Carlos, and Tony. They're freaking heavy. Tomorrow we'll be down one man at least part of the day, and the weather is expected to be very bad, so they're going to hold off on the rest of the big stuff until Monday. In the meantime, they're corralling a couple of strong guys to help with the lifting then, because there are two massive windows (each is actually three windows in one, a big fixed pane with a pair of smaller crank windows below), plus the French doors. Then there are the remaining two big ones for the downstairs, which look just like that one, and a couple of smaller ones left to do. 

Tomorrow, they'll be ripping out sheetrock. ::Insert primal scream here:: This is because of the faulty wiring; the new electrician will be here on Saturday to begin ripping out the old stuff; they'll rewire it evenings next week. It's gonna be a loooooooong couple of weeks.

Also an expensive couple of weeks, unexpectedly so. Very expensive. So we'll still need shares:

• Shares of our YouCaring page via the widgets provided, especially the widget code, which has once again been moved back to the purple box at the lower right-hand side of the page, that produces the image shown just above:
• Shares of Wings's site; sales also fund the construction (indeed, they are the baseline for it). Testimonials help.
• I've added Lowes gift cards to our Amazon wishlist. For folks who'd rather give gift cards than cash, this is far and away the best way to support construction. We're going to have to sink a small fortune into them for fixtures, appliances, flooring, etc., and at the moment, we can actually use the gift cards better than cash.

Thank you to everyone who has gotten us this far in the year just past; for the new year, we have a long way to go, but they're making fast progress. There'll be a lot more work getting done (and undone and redone) at the end of the week and into next week, but at least we won't have to worry about the wiring melting down inside the walls and sending the whole place up like a bonfire. I mean, that was the very reason we started this whole process in the first place — the electrical fire in this tin can in 2015.

But first, I want to direct your attention here (or, for folks at the GOS, here). Lin's spirit is on its journey to where the water meets the light, but Laura will still need our help for a while. Please T/R/share/donate to her fund if you can. Especially that last. It's needed.

Thanks, everyone.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.