an update of sorts ;-)
We have had a busy few months out here in Montana. The biggest news since our last update is that we made it through the winter without becoming ice cubes…okay, that isn’t exactly the biggest news around here. We are officially expecting a wee one around November 18, if you haven’t heard this yet I suggest you get your keys outta your ears! Just kidding, mostly. The last few months have been very exciting for us as we watch my body change and grow and get used to the changes just in time for more to come along. Emil was the first to realize we were pregnant; apparently me sleeping full nights and taking on Dolly Parton dimensions somehow flew under my own radar, but my astute husband caught on quickly and here we are at week 27.
As we started looking around for birthing options, we found out that Montana has very rigid midwifery laws. (I wonder if insurance lobby groups are in on this??) We found a gal in Bozeman who will do a homebirth here in Helena, but Bozeman is two hours away. We decided to go with her anyway as there aren’t any other alternatives. When we got in touch with her we found out that she has been training a gal here in Helena who is finishing up her ‘clinical’ hours with our Bozeman midwife. Long story short, we have two midwives for the venture: one from Bozeman and one from Helena. This is nice because we can alternate visits between the two of them until the last two months, then we have to go to Bozeman every time. They both are experienced and knowledgeable, communicate our case well between each other and it is fully within Montana legalities for them to share us. The midwives are particularly excited about Emil and I as a family unit and even give us the courtesy of ‘getting our humor’…scary as that may seem! We had our first visit around week 13 and have heard the baby’s heartbeat at every visit. Emil always adds comments on the various tonal qualities of the heartbeat. I wonder if the midwives sometimes think we are weird, but they get over it quickly when they see our enthusiasm for such things. Anyhow, the baby is healthy. The pregnancy itself has been very gentle and pleasant especially in the sense of sleeping all night—haven’t ever slept this well. Hard to believe that we are well over halfway through this already—then we will be back to no sleep. The biggest thing, in all frankness, has been getting used to this ridiculous bosom…but I digress to a level of unnecessary detail.
Because everyone out here is asking, I will answer it for you folks out there, we do not know if it is a boy or a girl, however, we call ‘it’ a him and “Octavian Augustus” in the meantime…that isn’t the final name of course, it started a while back between Emil and I as a joke and has grown into a practice and a habit.
Let’s see other than the baby news; we have had a good year gardening thus far. The entire family came over in May for a work party. Dad G. and Emil cut all of the careganna bushes, lilacs, trimmed all of the trees and then worked with Winston, Pat, Mom G and I to get the garden spot turned up and several truckloads of topsoil hauled in from the parents’ house. The bushes and trees were quite overgrown and hadn’t been attended to in years. No joke, we had neighbors staring for weeks—sometimes slowing down as they drove by, tripping over their dog leashes as they were out walking, or just plain stopping at our gate with slack jaws—at first it looked like we did slash and burn farming in our front yard. I am certain the neighborhood was quite concerned for a while, but then it filled in and started looking better than their yards, so there wasn’t so much staring in a shocked way anymore; more of an embarrassed ‘let’s get on home and mow at least’ glance. We have a garden up at the parents as well. Mom G. and I share the responsibilities and produce for both and it works out nicely. We put in 30 hills of potatoes down here along with squashes, tomatoes, carrots and a little dinner table lettuce patch. Up at their place we have okra, eggplant, peas, green beans, wax beans, more tomatoes, peppers (hot and cold), herbies, radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, carrots, cucumbers and a raspberry patch we put in last summer that is going gangbusters this summer! Last year both dinner tables did quite well with our garden strategy and it looks to be panning out the same way this time.
Mom G. and I have been sewing things for the baby and getting ready in general. It sure has been a blessing to have them close by. This will be their first grandchild and they are all quite excited at the prospect. I will never be the seamstresses that Mom R. or Beth W. are, but I have enjoyed trying my hand at it. Thankfully, he/she will be too little to care that some of their items are not square or that their bedroom curtains don’t match their sheets!!
Pat just graduated from high school and in June we took her out on the Continental Divide Trail for a first of the summer hike/graduation present. Because of Emil’s diet, among other things, I make all of our hiking foods. I spent most of the first part of June dehydrating jerky, fruit, and soups; making bear grunt and trying to figure out if my hiking pants were going to still fit or not… I recalled the famous words of a Mr. Ted H. Wilson who once stated (to his esteemed sister and in reference to a pair of Cleveland Cavaliers gym shorts), “I could either sell these to you for a few bucks or I’ll just wear them until my butt busts through the back.” I took those words to heart apparently, and had stored them away for days such as these. So come hiking time, and as there were no offers of a few bucks for my pants, I had rigged up my pants to comfortably fit below my tummy pooch (which as Britt has kindly relayed to some of you, isn’t a very impressive tummy pooch, but enough to make a difference with my waistband); the pants fit otherwise, I lost no seams on the trail and enjoyed a bit of engineered ventilation for the hike. We did around 25 miles on the CDT, camped and then called it a hike. It was good to get up into the high country and enjoy the view from a trail that traversed ridge tops and permitted 360-degree views of our beautiful Montana. I hike Mount Helena (the one in our backyard, not the volcano as Britt tends to think) several times a week and I do believe that those weekly forays helped in making the CDT trip easier for a pregnant gal with 25 pounds of gear on her back. Emil and Pat took most of the gear, and it was quite nice to have a light pack; although Emil would have preferred that I didn’t have to carry even 25 pounds. But what are you going to leave?? the kitchen sink or the extension cord for Pat’s hair dryer… :-)
We did another shorter (10 mile) day hike a week or so later without any gear beyond a lunch and I found it quite comparable in comfort. I think that Octavian will be a little mountain goat as I have found that anytime the brain needs a rest, the back is hurting or the tummy is all messed up, an hour hiking up the mountain will get things settled back where they belong. Mount Helena is visible from our house; sometimes I will call Emil while he is working to wave at me when I get to the top of the mountain. I am sure the constituents of Helena wonder sometimes when there is some gal up on the mountain top waving wildly…then again they may be still recovering from our slash and burn practices and aren’t paying us any mind.
Emil has designed a power amplifier to complement our preamplifier. We have a working prototype of the power amp up at the parents where it is undergoing rigorous testing with Dad’s sound system. It sounds incredible and really completes the package. If you do an internet search for power amps and preamplifiers you will find a wide range of offerings as well as prices: from el cheapo to utterly ridiculous. The biggest thing that struck me when I was working through the price lists of our future competitors is that we as a nation have an excess of excess. When people are out there buying a stupid component for their sound system that is as much as a new car (yes, there are high end preamps selling for 20 grand—ours sound better, and we do it for a fraction of the cost without compromising design and quality); that should be an indicator of where we as a world stand with regards to fiscal priorities. ai yi yi. We hope to have both components in production by the end of the year including a pilot run with one of the music stores here in Montana. So far we have one prototype order from Jeremy…but hey, we will take them when we can get them!
We have made significant progress on the Volvo project. We took out the in tank fuel pump and noted that the bag filter had dissolved and left gunky residue in the bottom of the tank. Emil took out the gas tank and used some type of high powered cleaning solution to clean the gunk and then a sealant to redo the inside, just in case the cleaning solution had done more than we expected. It worked really well, and I just think I may try the cleaning solution on Nat’s shower next time we are out… J We had the car turning over and sputtering before the fuel pump conked out again (the one we repaired finally went kaput!) and decided to replace the fuel pumps while we were in the mess of it. We found both fuel pumps on the Internet for slightly less than an arm and a leg. That e-bay is pretty helpful for finding cheap parts. We bled the brakes and cleaned up the vital electrics and fired her up. As of last weekend (August 6) the car is running well and has made several maiden voyages around the block. We took it across town to the parents yesterday to power wash the undercarriage so we could better see what we are working with. All in all, she is a solid running car and we think she has great potential for our original goals—a cross-country touring vehicle/grocery getter! One big notable difference is that our Volvo has more low-end torque than our Honda, which will come in handy with the ski hills next winter. I am certain that Nat, Josie and Mr. Wilson would be proud of our car wrenching efforts; it sure has been a fun project for the both of us. We will be attacking the general maintenance list and get everything up to par since we have no idea when these things were checked or changed last. I think the timing belt and a leak-down compression test are on the agenda for the upcoming weeks. I am pleased to report that my mechanic-monkey suit still fits AND I can still slide under the car on my stomach without compromising Octavian’s comfort (this won’t be for long though!).
Earlier this spring, we put together a little woodshop in our garage and moved all of our tools from the parent’s garage. I think they appreciated that maneuver as the lawn mower is no longer stored on top of the freezer, which was balancing on the winter tire pile and held up by the tool chest…perhaps a wee exaggeration there! Anyhow, it has been nice to have our tools down here to putter about with. We built deer/bird-proof garden covers that we can move easily for access to weed and harvest. I found two more piles of wood this spring as well. The first was a pile of pine that I turned into a set of clothes and spare blanket shelves for our bedroom. Looks super classy. Last month I recovered a pile of wood that had been used to haul office equipment. It was a nice surprise though, as in addition to the expected pine, we got a nice pile of red oak. I designed a high chair for Octavian and have been working on building that out of our pile of red oak. Basically, if you have scrap wood laying about town I will ask for it and we will make something out of it. Emil designed a baby cradle/crib that we plan on building before November. I think we are going to use new wood on that though. We recovered pine pallets and built a shipping crate this past week for a set of Jeremy’s skis that we sold for him. I think the UPS man might have been concerned about our over-engineering, but we were having fun hammering.
Them's our projects here recently, I'll try to get some pictures out here at some point. Scanning back through this I note that the word 'baby' comes up alot....you wonder if we are a bit excited or something haha!
Ryan
As we started looking around for birthing options, we found out that Montana has very rigid midwifery laws. (I wonder if insurance lobby groups are in on this??) We found a gal in Bozeman who will do a homebirth here in Helena, but Bozeman is two hours away. We decided to go with her anyway as there aren’t any other alternatives. When we got in touch with her we found out that she has been training a gal here in Helena who is finishing up her ‘clinical’ hours with our Bozeman midwife. Long story short, we have two midwives for the venture: one from Bozeman and one from Helena. This is nice because we can alternate visits between the two of them until the last two months, then we have to go to Bozeman every time. They both are experienced and knowledgeable, communicate our case well between each other and it is fully within Montana legalities for them to share us. The midwives are particularly excited about Emil and I as a family unit and even give us the courtesy of ‘getting our humor’…scary as that may seem! We had our first visit around week 13 and have heard the baby’s heartbeat at every visit. Emil always adds comments on the various tonal qualities of the heartbeat. I wonder if the midwives sometimes think we are weird, but they get over it quickly when they see our enthusiasm for such things. Anyhow, the baby is healthy. The pregnancy itself has been very gentle and pleasant especially in the sense of sleeping all night—haven’t ever slept this well. Hard to believe that we are well over halfway through this already—then we will be back to no sleep. The biggest thing, in all frankness, has been getting used to this ridiculous bosom…but I digress to a level of unnecessary detail.
Because everyone out here is asking, I will answer it for you folks out there, we do not know if it is a boy or a girl, however, we call ‘it’ a him and “Octavian Augustus” in the meantime…that isn’t the final name of course, it started a while back between Emil and I as a joke and has grown into a practice and a habit.
Let’s see other than the baby news; we have had a good year gardening thus far. The entire family came over in May for a work party. Dad G. and Emil cut all of the careganna bushes, lilacs, trimmed all of the trees and then worked with Winston, Pat, Mom G and I to get the garden spot turned up and several truckloads of topsoil hauled in from the parents’ house. The bushes and trees were quite overgrown and hadn’t been attended to in years. No joke, we had neighbors staring for weeks—sometimes slowing down as they drove by, tripping over their dog leashes as they were out walking, or just plain stopping at our gate with slack jaws—at first it looked like we did slash and burn farming in our front yard. I am certain the neighborhood was quite concerned for a while, but then it filled in and started looking better than their yards, so there wasn’t so much staring in a shocked way anymore; more of an embarrassed ‘let’s get on home and mow at least’ glance. We have a garden up at the parents as well. Mom G. and I share the responsibilities and produce for both and it works out nicely. We put in 30 hills of potatoes down here along with squashes, tomatoes, carrots and a little dinner table lettuce patch. Up at their place we have okra, eggplant, peas, green beans, wax beans, more tomatoes, peppers (hot and cold), herbies, radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, carrots, cucumbers and a raspberry patch we put in last summer that is going gangbusters this summer! Last year both dinner tables did quite well with our garden strategy and it looks to be panning out the same way this time.
Mom G. and I have been sewing things for the baby and getting ready in general. It sure has been a blessing to have them close by. This will be their first grandchild and they are all quite excited at the prospect. I will never be the seamstresses that Mom R. or Beth W. are, but I have enjoyed trying my hand at it. Thankfully, he/she will be too little to care that some of their items are not square or that their bedroom curtains don’t match their sheets!!
Pat just graduated from high school and in June we took her out on the Continental Divide Trail for a first of the summer hike/graduation present. Because of Emil’s diet, among other things, I make all of our hiking foods. I spent most of the first part of June dehydrating jerky, fruit, and soups; making bear grunt and trying to figure out if my hiking pants were going to still fit or not… I recalled the famous words of a Mr. Ted H. Wilson who once stated (to his esteemed sister and in reference to a pair of Cleveland Cavaliers gym shorts), “I could either sell these to you for a few bucks or I’ll just wear them until my butt busts through the back.” I took those words to heart apparently, and had stored them away for days such as these. So come hiking time, and as there were no offers of a few bucks for my pants, I had rigged up my pants to comfortably fit below my tummy pooch (which as Britt has kindly relayed to some of you, isn’t a very impressive tummy pooch, but enough to make a difference with my waistband); the pants fit otherwise, I lost no seams on the trail and enjoyed a bit of engineered ventilation for the hike. We did around 25 miles on the CDT, camped and then called it a hike. It was good to get up into the high country and enjoy the view from a trail that traversed ridge tops and permitted 360-degree views of our beautiful Montana. I hike Mount Helena (the one in our backyard, not the volcano as Britt tends to think) several times a week and I do believe that those weekly forays helped in making the CDT trip easier for a pregnant gal with 25 pounds of gear on her back. Emil and Pat took most of the gear, and it was quite nice to have a light pack; although Emil would have preferred that I didn’t have to carry even 25 pounds. But what are you going to leave?? the kitchen sink or the extension cord for Pat’s hair dryer… :-)
We did another shorter (10 mile) day hike a week or so later without any gear beyond a lunch and I found it quite comparable in comfort. I think that Octavian will be a little mountain goat as I have found that anytime the brain needs a rest, the back is hurting or the tummy is all messed up, an hour hiking up the mountain will get things settled back where they belong. Mount Helena is visible from our house; sometimes I will call Emil while he is working to wave at me when I get to the top of the mountain. I am sure the constituents of Helena wonder sometimes when there is some gal up on the mountain top waving wildly…then again they may be still recovering from our slash and burn practices and aren’t paying us any mind.
Emil has designed a power amplifier to complement our preamplifier. We have a working prototype of the power amp up at the parents where it is undergoing rigorous testing with Dad’s sound system. It sounds incredible and really completes the package. If you do an internet search for power amps and preamplifiers you will find a wide range of offerings as well as prices: from el cheapo to utterly ridiculous. The biggest thing that struck me when I was working through the price lists of our future competitors is that we as a nation have an excess of excess. When people are out there buying a stupid component for their sound system that is as much as a new car (yes, there are high end preamps selling for 20 grand—ours sound better, and we do it for a fraction of the cost without compromising design and quality); that should be an indicator of where we as a world stand with regards to fiscal priorities. ai yi yi. We hope to have both components in production by the end of the year including a pilot run with one of the music stores here in Montana. So far we have one prototype order from Jeremy…but hey, we will take them when we can get them!
We have made significant progress on the Volvo project. We took out the in tank fuel pump and noted that the bag filter had dissolved and left gunky residue in the bottom of the tank. Emil took out the gas tank and used some type of high powered cleaning solution to clean the gunk and then a sealant to redo the inside, just in case the cleaning solution had done more than we expected. It worked really well, and I just think I may try the cleaning solution on Nat’s shower next time we are out… J We had the car turning over and sputtering before the fuel pump conked out again (the one we repaired finally went kaput!) and decided to replace the fuel pumps while we were in the mess of it. We found both fuel pumps on the Internet for slightly less than an arm and a leg. That e-bay is pretty helpful for finding cheap parts. We bled the brakes and cleaned up the vital electrics and fired her up. As of last weekend (August 6) the car is running well and has made several maiden voyages around the block. We took it across town to the parents yesterday to power wash the undercarriage so we could better see what we are working with. All in all, she is a solid running car and we think she has great potential for our original goals—a cross-country touring vehicle/grocery getter! One big notable difference is that our Volvo has more low-end torque than our Honda, which will come in handy with the ski hills next winter. I am certain that Nat, Josie and Mr. Wilson would be proud of our car wrenching efforts; it sure has been a fun project for the both of us. We will be attacking the general maintenance list and get everything up to par since we have no idea when these things were checked or changed last. I think the timing belt and a leak-down compression test are on the agenda for the upcoming weeks. I am pleased to report that my mechanic-monkey suit still fits AND I can still slide under the car on my stomach without compromising Octavian’s comfort (this won’t be for long though!).
Earlier this spring, we put together a little woodshop in our garage and moved all of our tools from the parent’s garage. I think they appreciated that maneuver as the lawn mower is no longer stored on top of the freezer, which was balancing on the winter tire pile and held up by the tool chest…perhaps a wee exaggeration there! Anyhow, it has been nice to have our tools down here to putter about with. We built deer/bird-proof garden covers that we can move easily for access to weed and harvest. I found two more piles of wood this spring as well. The first was a pile of pine that I turned into a set of clothes and spare blanket shelves for our bedroom. Looks super classy. Last month I recovered a pile of wood that had been used to haul office equipment. It was a nice surprise though, as in addition to the expected pine, we got a nice pile of red oak. I designed a high chair for Octavian and have been working on building that out of our pile of red oak. Basically, if you have scrap wood laying about town I will ask for it and we will make something out of it. Emil designed a baby cradle/crib that we plan on building before November. I think we are going to use new wood on that though. We recovered pine pallets and built a shipping crate this past week for a set of Jeremy’s skis that we sold for him. I think the UPS man might have been concerned about our over-engineering, but we were having fun hammering.
Them's our projects here recently, I'll try to get some pictures out here at some point. Scanning back through this I note that the word 'baby' comes up alot....you wonder if we are a bit excited or something haha!
Ryan
posted by flyinryan | 1:10 PM
6 Comments:
Thanks for the newsy update Ryan :) It was super to see you again last weekend!
You're a good kid :) Yay for Ryan updates :)
Congrats!!! (about everything but mostly about the little one.)
;)
Yea! She lives and speaks!
Congrats on the little one. :D
Congratulations, Mrs. Artist-formerly-known-as-Ruttencutter! Be sure to let us know when the speakers are available to the masses. I want a set.
Awwwww..... Wee ones are the greatest thing in this life! Congrats on a great pregnancy! Mine was much the same except for sleeping. I had to pee every two hours every night after the first trimester. Enjoy the rediculous bosom - it's fleeting!! And I maybe wouldn't recommend the chair lift ride at 8 mos! 28 days to FOT!! woo hoo!!
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