Then and Now

This week's challenge was "then and now", try to get a photo from the past and recreate the scene now.  I had fun with this one, it is good to go back and look through all these photos now and then.  I have accumulated rather a lot of them ever since someone gave me a digital camera and freed me of the guilt and hassle of film.

I tend to expect rather a lot out of myself on any given day, usually too much.  I often end up feeling like I never get anything done because I am not living up to my own ridiculous expectations.  It was good to stop and look and realize that in the last four years, I have gotten rather a lot done.  In truth, this post could have turned into a real monster since I have taken thousands of photos in recent years.  I extensively documented my mother-of-all-DIY projects and I could have posted a hundred "then and now" photos.  Instead, I limited things to a few representative shots. 

6/19/2008 Not quite yet the official owner of 20 acres of abandoned and neglected farm land.  An ocean of weeds with nothing else on it...

Today.  I didn't get the angel quite right, but you get the idea...

12/18/2008 I swore I wouldn't build in the winter only to be forced into it by idiot excavators and circumstance...

Today.  I tried to get the donkeys to pose for me in front of the barn, but had to settle for them nudging me on from behind....

7/29/09  My knees still hurt just thinking about this job...

8-12-09 I was really surprised when I saw the date on this photo.  This was a difficult, backbreaking, almost overwhelming job that still looms large in my memory (and sore joints) yet the dates say it was done in two weeks.  I am glad I did it, but I don't ever, EVER want to lay another hardwood floor.

1/22/09

Today.  For all it was over my head and up in the air, this white pine was soooo much easier than the floor.  I also had a very good friend show up (with scaffolding!) to help.  This ceiling went up in a day and a half.

Through all of this, there have been lots of other changes as well.  The horses I had got old while I wasn't looking.  One of them died suddenly and tragically of severe, acute colic that could not be treated.  The other is now retired and lives with a friend.   I went horse shopping and remembered exactly why I hate trying to find a new horse.  I rescued, and found a good home for, a pair of badly abused draft ponies.  I bought two horses and resold one of them because we weren't a good match.  I found the horse I had been searching for for many years only to have her critically injured by another rescued horse.  I met a man I thought I might spend my life with, but that was not to be.  I bought a donkey and remembered why I do all this.

My saving grace through all has been that some things do stay the same, at least for a while...  

and some changes bring pure joy into the world....