Weekly Round-Up 1/24

It’s been a while since I did one of these! Thanks for having me. Glad to be back. 

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune

Whew, that’s a mouthful! I did say it’s hard for me to relax/read much anymore, but I still do when I can, usually while laying in bed. This has been my latest read, and I am fascinated. 

I first learned of Huguette Clark’s existance when the sale of her mansions was covered in the media. They’ve been empty for nearly 60 years, while Huguette herself spent the last 20 years of her life in a New York city hospital. She had fabulous wealth, but instead choose to stay in a small hospital room, with a view of closed in roof with air conditioning units (the book includes a picture of this).

How did she end up there? Why did she willingly decide she would stay there, despite being completely healthy? Where was her family? 

The book attempts to explore that, starting with the rise of her father’s wealth. It’s also incredible how her father went from poor, common born boy to insanely wealthy copper baron. W.A Clark’s weath was up there with all the well known industrialists, like the Vanderbilts, but his name isn’t nearly as well known. This man literally built his own empire. Although he gained most of his fortune through copper, he actually started out reselling supplies to gold miners, and just kept developing different businesses. 

Their house on 5th avenue was incredible. Even more incredible, after Clark’s death, it was torn down with the reasoning no one else could afford to live in or maintain it. It was occupied for less than 20 years total.  

It’s a fascinating book, although I’ve only gotten just beyond reading about  W.A. Clark’s death. I need to learn more about Huguette now! I highly recommend it, although be aware it does not read like a novel. I find the style engrossing, but elements of it are written like a history book. 

One Year Ago…

Approximately one year ago, I made my last post before the baby came. I was too large and grumpy to make another one I suppose. But that post was about SNOW! The bane of my existance! Boy, do I hate snow! I hated it last year when I had to do chores pregnant in the snow, and I hate it this year! Some things never change…

Except my photo taking/editing. I guess that changed.

Although there is no snow on the ground right now, it’s getting pretty cold at night. We’ve had a series of nights in the upper teens. Brrrr. To make things really fun, Berry decided to climb into the water trough and brutalize the water heater. I found it in pieces. Luckily it was just the cage, and not the heating unit, and that’s how I found out it’s possible to buy just the cage part, which is significantly cheaper than a total replacement. But still, that’s $16 I didn’t want to spend! (I bought it at the Co-op, should have looked online first I suppose)

Now I have to pull the whole unit out of the trough during the day because I can’t trust Berry not to do it again. I really thought the cold weather would have stopped her, but I can’t assume anything when it comes to Berry.

Horse Stalls

I mentioned at some point that my horse stalls are now in use. It’s so nice to be able to bring everyone into the barn, and I’ve adopted the traditional in at night, out during the day routine. I still have some work to do to finish the stalls. Their doors are actually just gates, and I’d like them to be actual doors. I have a pair of sliding barn doors, which I previously would not have thought of using, but I think I’m going to do some alterations and make them swinging doors for the stalls. I don’t have the stall setup to allow for rolling doors, and I’m not going to spend the money to adapt them, so swinging doors is the only option.

I’m pretty excited about getting this done, but since it’s been so cold, I really don’t want to hang out outside. I know, I’m a big baby. 

While I was thinking the doors would complete the stalls, I actually had an incident this morning. Pony, being the huge jerk he can be, got upset that Stu was eating his own grain too close to the stall wall. Pony flipped out, kicking the wall, and ended up popping a board out. He’s such a little snot! 

Now the board needs to be reset, and it’s apparent I’m going to need some bigger screws to hold them in. Didn’t I mention before how horses are just on a mission to destroy everything? Pretty sure I did. 

That concludes this week. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Just kidding, stay and look around. All are welcome!