Still waiting...
We thought that last night for sure, something was going to happen.
Mom arrived from Calgary around 3pm, and by 5pm trixstir was starting to experience what she believed to be labour pains. She had been feeling other pressures all day; To the best of her knowledge (and what she could feel) the baby was moving itself into position. She was experiencing short flashes of what she thought might be the onset of contractions, but they were roughly an hour apart, and by 9pm she was fairly exhausted and went to bed. Mom had had an early start and a long drive, so she went to bed as well. My own day had started around 5:30am, after a rather restless night, so even I was feeling worn out and by 9:15pm I was dozing off in front of the TV so I decided to call it a night as well.
I was awake again (for the Nth time) at 5am, and decided to just get up. Trixstir was up several times during the night, which meant that I was too; each time hoping that maybe something was actually going to be happening. So far, still nothing. It's frustrating for me, but it's got to be a lot worse for Trixstir! When this baby was first conceived, we had estimated the birth to be in late July; It seems that our calculations are more accurate, despite what the doctors and technicians might think. At least now this baby will definitely be a Leo instead of a Cancer, so in that regard I'm pleased that it's taking a little longer to arrive. No offense meant to those of you who are Cancers, but I really wanted either another Sagittarius, or a Leo. :)
I spent most of yesterday cutting down the high grass around the area where we want to set up the Sea-Can that Jack is bringing us. I'll be able to give most of it to the horses, but there's a good chunk of it that I'm going to have to dump in the compost heap because of all the toad-stools growing in it. I just don't want to risk poisoning the horses with chunks of shredded mushrooms. Were I as adept at identifying them as dv_girl , I might be able to determine if they're safe or not, but I'm not prepared to take a chance with these ones.
The worst thing about trying to clean up an old farm, is finding old barbed-wire. There is nothing I detest more on the farm than barbed-wire! I can understand why it's used when dealing with cattle, but if one is going to use the blasted stuff, one should also be responsible for its upkeep, and removing it when it's old and rusted-out. I snagged the Swisher twice in the stuff that was buried in the high grass, and with some amount of effort I was able to pull the stuff out of the deep thatch and get rid of it. There were three strands, and I wound up having to pull them out one at a time as trying to pull up all three at once was just too difficult. As I had feared, they all went to the far end of the old shack that we're going to knock down, so I wound up having to clear all the high grass and old junk out of that spot as well. I guess I would have had to do so anyway before we knocked it down, but the timing was just aggrevating.
I found more chunks of machinery and just other metal buried in the thatch out there. It amazes me that anyone could be so careless; I can't even imagine why the stuff I found would even be in that area, but there it was. Some of it may actually still be useful, though at the moment I'm not entirely sure what for. In particular, there's a large chunk of round metal (about 20' long!) with connections on either end for dropping in hitch-pins to attach it to a tractor and/or some implement. My best guess is that it was used to attach a tractor to some sort of farm-wagon, though I'm not sure as to why it would be so long. I've also found two shorter ones, each about 10' long, but those two have a slight bend in them whereas the longer one is perfectly straight. There are also bits of an old water-softening system, and an rusted-out old oil-burning furnace out there. It seems that the previous owner was just dumping all kinds of scrap junk in that area. The furnace and the water-softener tanks were plain to see, but the metal towing-bar (for lack of a better name) was buried just under the surface, and I'd have never known it was there had I not stepped on it.
I also tested the dial-up option for SaskTel; Although we have high-speed, the account also includes a dial-up backup in case you're away from your high-speed connection. There's no Internet (wireless or otherwise) at the hospital, but there are telephone jacks, so I can connect my old laptop that way. I find it interesting that the new laptops have built-in Wireless-N, and a built-in 1Gbit ethernet port, but they don't have modems. I guess manufacturers are thinking (incorrectly) that everyone who uses a laptop these days has access to high-speed broadband. It would also help a lot if programs that automatically update (such as Anti-Virus software) would have an option to hold off on updating if you only have a dial-up connection; When you're connected at 24k, such updates are using up an awful lot of your available bandwidth!
A brief storm raced through here last evening as well; The sky had been getting cloudy all afternoon, and around 7:30pm the wind suddenly came roaring through at a sustained speed of around 60kmh, and gusts even higher! It was gone just as quickly, having blown itself out in less than half an hour, after which it was dead calm again. At least the power didn't flicker out, and although there was some thunder and lightning, there doesn't seem to have been any actual rain. The weather forecast shows a 70% chance of Thundershowers today (I've already heard the occasional distant rumble) but bright and sunny for the next several days after. I really hope they get it right, as we could really use those warm sunny days to dry things out around here!
So that was Yesterday; Here's wondering if today will be The Day, or if we're going to keep playing Hurry-Up-And-Wait!