If you knew me well, you would know that I love music, play many instruments and had to sell my piano several years ago during my divorce. It was a very painful decision, but I knew that I could not take it with me to a rental house and to wherever we might end up. Loosing a house to foreclosure is a very unsure business. And I needed to settle a debt, so my beloved black studio piano was sold. I always hoped that when the time was right, we would have a piano in the house again. I love playing the piano. Nothing fancy, but hey, I can use both hands at once! (hahaha) Not just a hunt and peck one-hander!
Both Jessy and Maggie like to play as well, and I believe they could get to be quite good, if they had one to play. At least more than tolerable. And I think playing music is a wonderful thing.
Our good friend Jan, she offered us a piano that was in her basement. Free! Just find some strong men to get it out of the basement. It’s rather amazing how many people are busy when you start talking about moving an upright huge piano from an old house basement. I believe a few of them would have rather donated a kidney than get involved. Honestly, it was only my buddy Jeff that said he was game if he could be there, but there was just no way we could do that without a lot more help.
So when we were out garage saling on the US 127 trail… we came to a sale, that we almost passed up. And they had some wonderful things… and at the little checkout card table, there above the kind lady was a nice sign that said, Free Spinet Piano, Ground Floor.
Ahah!!! They spoke the secret words! GROUND FLOOR!!!
Why in the heck people shove these gigantic, heavy musical instruments in basements is beyond me. Did you know that even the smallest studio or spinet piano is at least 400 pounds? An old upright is easily 600-800 pounds and a baby grand is about 1200 pounds. I learned this on several piano moving websites.
Well, I asked about it and she said that the piano was at her friends house, about a half mile away and she would call her for me. Right then the lady behind me said that she was interested in it, because she was a piano teacher and she had a student who was an adopted orphan from Sri Lianka who needed a piano to continue her learning. She only had an electronic keyboard.
Oh my gosh… I looked at her and then I looked at the garage sale lady, phone in hand, and there was silence. My piano was getting snatched away before my very eyes. I had to think quick. Should I bow out gracefully, and let this bucket list treasure get away? And so I did it. I pulled my ace card. I told them about my autistic daughter who would love to play piano again and that we had no piano or keyboard and that she had to have surgery because she broke her leg and she needed something to do while it healed. Oh, yeah, and we homeschooled. (Apparently, that was the icing on my pathetic cake…)
There was silence again… Oh…. the lady sighed, you were first to ask… If you can’t then perhaps I can make arrangements for it. Whew! Inside, I was doing the happy dance. But I did try to stay somber and composed. I told her that there were many fine pianos to be had on Craigslist free, but that they were often in basements, but perhaps she could find someone to move it for her student. A fine bit of consolation wisdom there. I still felt a little remorse about the orphan, but not too long. That’s how badly we wanted a piano!!!
Well, we went and met the people and sure enough, there sat this lovely piano, in a closet, and only three steps up to where he lay. They were very nice, had a beautiful home, and were excited for us to give the lovely Story and Clark piano a home. Now the hard part. How to get it home.
Well, I was so excited that I posted all about it on our facebook page. And quick as you can finger a nice little chord, our friend Mary said she had a trailer! And she and her hubby Tim would be happy to help. Of course, we would need some help, and the piano folks said, no problem, they had some good strong helpful neighbors. Great. We made plans and went to get him. We’re calling him Clark, because Story sounds a little weird. You know us by now. We name everything.
Well, I did a bunch of reading online about moving these beasts. All suggested using a furniture dolly. So I rented a pair from the local U-Haul place. And we set out on the big adventure. Tim and Mary’s trailer is lovely, a nice covered trailer which was fortunate, because there were light showers possible and we didn’t want to have to fight rain damage to Clark, not at this point. Clark was bought back in 1956 for this lovely lady as a five year old child and it’s been in her family the whole time. This baby is in beautiful shape. Hasn’t been played for 30+ years and can use a little tuning, but still, it’s in really good tune for sitting so long!
The neighbors came to help and there just happened to be a pair of additional young men there, inquiring about some duck decoys for sale and they offered to help as well! Thank goodness, because even those three steps down proved to be very difficult. Clark was a heavy lad. We got him all secure and it was agreed that the four of us were going to need a little help at the house to get this beast inside. We thought at first with the dollies and some lifting straps and the fact that Clark only had to go up a couple easy stairs to get into our house, that we might be able to do it. Thank God for Junior and Jeremy!!! We gave them a call and within 5 minutes we had that thing up and in the house. It’s got little wheels, so that helped greatly once we had him up the porch steps.
We were SO HAPPY!!! We had left Maggie at home, because there was only so may spots in the truck, and to see her face when we got it in place, that was priceless. She was thrilled. And so was I! Let me tell you, Clark had more playing in the first 3 hours at our place then he has probably had in the last 30 years! And every day, someone is playing around with him, relearning bits and playing around with the Liberace Big Note Songbook that we had from a garage sale purchase awhile ago. Not sure why I bought it, probably because it was 25 cents. But it was also just one of those hopeful purchases… an easy read songbook that I hoped someday would be on our own piano… in our own home.
Maybe it’s funny, but you know, having this piano really feels good. It feels like a circle has been completed. We have a home again, we have our animals and gardens, and now we have our piano… music restored. What is lost, has been regained. It’s taken us 7 years, but we have made it. And playing Moon River and the Entertainer just makes for the perfect soundtrack!!
And no one was hurt in the process!!!! Yeah, Team Windhaven!!!! Pianos IS HEAVY!!!!!!!
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Dear Mom,
I’m having a great time at camp! I love it when we get to have mud puddle bathes and play in the hose! All my camp friends are so cool, they’re just like me! The counselors are swell, they come and visit all the time and we get treats and belly rubbies, it’s just the best place ever! I can’t wait for you to come and pick me up on Sunday, I’ll miss camp, but I miss you guys too at the farm!
Love, Ebony.
PS. I met the cutest guy here and he says we’re going to get married and live in a red barn and have lots of little piglets! I can’t wait to tell you all about him!
We went and picked up Ebony today from Love Camp. She’s been there for the last nine weeks! Kristina is pretty sure she’s bred, she’s hanging a little low in the belly and she’s been in with Harry, her beau, for the whole time and he’s pretty good at not letting anyone get by his advances when those 21 day heat cycles come around. We are going to take a guess that it was probably about 4 weeks ago, so we’ll use that as our starting point. Of course, it could be earlier and could be later. Pigs have the coolest gestation rate…. it’s 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. It’s between 112 and 115 days. Using 114 as the base, and assuming that she was bred the very first day she was there (highly unlikely) the absolute soonest that she could farrow would be September 29th, 2013. If you add 21 days to that… You get October 20th. (21 days being a heat cycle.) I guess is that from about the first of October, we’ll be on piglet watch. That being said, we’ll probably take Oscar and Meyer in for freezer camp that last week of September or so. I will move Ebony to her own stall about middle of September, just to be safe and to keep her from fighting with the meat boys or being too rowdy playing, etc. Sooner if we feel the need to. Right now, she’s about the size of them, perhaps in the middle, since Meyer is a bit younger than Oscar.
She was a little hard to catch at Love Camp… she was in with several others and just pretty much knew we were going to do something to her when the dog crate was lowered into the paddock and she was singled out for capture. Pigs are incredibly fast and agile creatures. But soon she was in the slightly cramped carrier and homeward bound.
It was apparent that she has grown in the last two months, she was considerably heavier and this is the last time she’ll be traveling in a dog crate! Poor thing, she was a little cramped. Not so badly that she couldn’t turn around, but it was a tight squeeze to do that. We could have probably just put her in the back of the wagon, and then driven her back to the barn and the pig pen, but the act of getting her out and into the barn safely is more of a risk in open space. Having her safely inside the crate meant that we could get her into the barn, close the doors and then get her into the pen. If anyone escaped, it would just be in the barn, not the yard. Much more desirable! Runaway pigs are just hard hard to catch!
I’m so excited to have her back and to look forward to a litter of piglets before the snow flies. It will be wonderful to watch her little babies grow up in the nice warm barn, under heat lamps and with sweet straw. We’ll probably make a little creep stall next to the big stall so the piglets can come in and eat without Momma hogging it all as they get bigger through the winter. They will be nearly 6 months old before they get to go outside!!! Though I suppose once they are old enough, if it’s not too cold, they could go out here and there. Guess we’ll just have to play that by ear.
They will be purebred American Guinea Hogs, registered and helping to bring back this wonderful heritage hog. Oscar and Meyer will be the last of our planned feeder pigs… perhaps by next winter, we’ll have a few of Ebony’s first litter ready for freezer camp. Just depends I guess. Can’t count your piglets until they’ve farrowed. Our plan is to keep a daughter and sell a few, hopefully to acquire our own boar through trade. And hopefully raise a few for our own needs. Guinea hogs can have anywhere from 3 or 4 to 8 or more, with the average litter size of 6 piglets. I just read about a first timer having 10 piglets, but that is rather unusual. Guess we just get to wait and see!
When brought her home and got her in the big pig pen with the lure of some day old bread outlet goodies. She greeted her two new inmate pals with hog disinterest, just a grunt and a sniff and then she was eating their food while Oscar and Meyer just sort of watched her in amazement. Everyone seemed fine, so Jessy and I went on to do a few other chores, checking in and listening for any difficulties. About 15 minutes or so had gone on without a single call or squeal. I thought it was all good. But then we heard a little scuffling and some piggy squeals so I went to check and see what might be up. Worried that the two slightly bigger hogs were picking on my little dainty flower girl.
Nope.
Ebony had both the boys in separate corners, cowering and grunting worried grunts as she happily ate the best of the goodies… stale blueberry muffins. If either boy even took a step forward, she would turn and give them this dreadful stare and a mean grunt and they would slink back and turn around to protect their heads in the corner. She went right away, happily munching her treats.
I guess I shouldn’t worry about my little sweet girl. She’s a big experienced queen hog and I think that we will have two slightly underweight meat hogs in there with her! haha… she must be pregnant. She wasn’t going to share her treats with no men. After a wee bit, she let them out of their corners, but they were walking around her ever so carefully, watching her every move. She pretty much walked around, checked the place out, pooped in the poop corner and then started to make herself a comfy bed in the straw corner to take a nap. It had been a long day and she seemed happy to be back in her nice big pen.
Oscar and Meyer decided to sleep on the opposite side of the barn. Probably with one eye open.
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