A New Coat for Fall and Pippa Takes a Nap ( sort of)

 If you are a fan of Winnie the Pooh this posting could also be named - " The Day in which Francis the Gallant rescued the Pony Princess"............( PS I love Winnie- "thuh" Pooh!!)

If you've been following my blog, then you will know that earlier on Francis removed all the old barn board from the exposed side of the barn in preparation for constructing the new support wall for the barn. He then put up new plywood  and covered it with "barn" wrap or waterproof membrane (can't call it house wrap on a barn lol!). Well summer has come and gone and now Autumn is here and so Francis is busy tidying up final things on the barn before winter (urrgh) sets in.

One of the things to finish was to put back up the old barn boards onto the new wall. He had been dreading it as it meant dragging all the boards he had placed in his workshop out of there, and place them on the ground so he could sort them and figure out how to make them go back on to the wall again( rather like doing a life-size jigsaw puzzle). Also, the wall had consisted of two layers of boards- one inner layer and one outer layer.The outer layer boards have been weathered by elements for over a hundred years and yet the inner ones were not worn at all. So how to make the boards match when he was using them again? You see some were damaged when removed and he would not have enough of all one type. Well,true to Francis style, he came up with a great solution- turn the boards over and use the inside surface as the outside! Now all the boards are the same colour and wear pattern! Genius I say.

And so in under 12 hours the barn was transformed yet again from a bit of an ugly duckling that looked like it hadn't got all its adult plumage, to the regal and elegant swan I knew was possible. He still has not finished putting the "frame" around all the windows, but the two closest to the barn door are done. These are also made out of the old barn boards.The boards don't match the top part of the barn as those have been weathered for over a hundred years, but in another hundred years no one will be able to tell the difference- or who knows with the wind and storms we get it may not even take that long!!

My hero at work!

Autumn sunset and glow

New wall with window frames!

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On Thanksgiving Monday, I took Raphi somewhere for an couple of hours off property. This left Pippa at home alone to amuse herself. And true to her inquisitive nature and as most small children will do when left to amuse themselves, she got into a tad of mischief. She decided to check out the new fresh dirt next to the barn now Francis had raked it all nice and flat and smooth after completion of the wall. You see Pippa  just loves to find a patch of dirt to roll in-- which is a challenge with all the grass fields, but leave it to her to find a nice spot of dirt for just that purpose.

Francis heard some banging while he was working on the other side of the barn. He thought he had left the barn door open and Pippa had gone in to check things out ( ie get into mischief). Well into mischief was right, but not in the barn. Instead she had managed to get herself "cast" against the barn wall. A horse gets cast when they decide to lie down and roll too close to a wall or other immoveable object. This means they get stuck and can't get back up. If left long enough a horse can die from being cast. But the universe was with us and Francis the Gallant came to rescue the maiden in distress ( PS its usually me he rescues---hmm should I be jealous??). Pippa is such a lady she let Francis grab hold of her back leg which was against the wall and use it to roll her over.... after which she promptly righted herself, shook herself off and went back to grazing none the worse for wear. Can't quite say the same of the poor wall-- it has a few quite large scratches from her back feet where she was kicking trying to rolled over and up again. Just thankful she plonked herself between the windows so no windows were broken and she didn't cut herself ( that could have been very ugly!). You can see how close she was to the window.... In fact she looks like she's having a nap, but in fact she was exhausted from trying to get up.

Poor Pippa "cast"against the wall- no she is not napping

Anyway, Francis maybe upset about the marks but like I told him, it adds character, reminds us to tell the story of when "Francis the Gallant Rescued the Horse Princess" and in a hundred years when the boards are
weathered we won't even notice them!