Christmas 2010
New Years 2011
The Sanborn Sanctuary
Another year has gone by and now look its already January 11th, 2011 and I am just getting to the Christmas letter. Well, that’s ok. 1/11/11 is a good number; it’s really like the first day of the year with all those one’s in it!
It was a year filled with so many things again, it’s hard to know where to start. The family had some changes: death and moving out. The farm had some changes as usual too: death and births. And each and every one of us had some life altering experiences, as usual!
Let’s start with one of the saddest parts of the year: the death of Bob's Dad Everett. He lived a long life, to a ripe old age of 88, and he lived his last years on one of the most beautiful places to live: our Sanctuary. In early August this year he was diagnosed with cancer and within three weeks, he was gone. The most peaceful way to go I think. He was well loved and will be missed.
Bob had some changes happen too. Another eye surgery to correct the double vision he incurred from the first surgery last year. Barn Bar continued its reign in webby-land, and we opened up our barn to have wonderful concerts out there to offer our friends and the public some good entertainment. We had great musical guests such as: Sally Barris, Brandon Sampson, Dana Cooper, The Waymores (who we graciously provided a baby goat to sing with them for their song, “Back on the Farm”), and the Martain de’Cogain Project. The concerts have been great fun! He also continues to play with his band Blue Monk and many other musician's around town. He also took the position as president of the Rochester Arts Council. School is going well and he is started to think of that real retirement day in a few years.
Dawn finally finished school, forever. She got her masters in human development from St Mary’s University and finished her certificate in riding and training at Rochester Community and Technical College. She still did farmer’s market, did her equine assisted life coaching, and started back to doing more of her photography by being hired to shoot several weddings, and numerous family, children, engagement shoots and commercial work. She also finally got back to doing the blog (
http://thesanbornsanctuary.blogspot.com/) she started seven years ago and stopped because life got too hectic. But now with no more school, and papers to write, she’s writing daily about life on the farm. If you want to keep track of the daily happenings here, check in on the blog. In the spring she was hired to teach a class at RCTC called, “Equine Therapy Concepts” for the fall semester and really enjoyed it! It will be offered again this fall 2011.
Samantha graduated high school this year! And two days later moved in with her boyfriend. She’s learning lots of new things; like it takes a lot of money to live on your own, and pay for a car loan, and food. She bought a fancy, silver Mercury Cougar this summer. She was working as a manager at Taco Bell but downsized that and went to work at T-Mobile as well, so she has two jobs now. She completed her last year in 4H, well actually all of us decided it was our last year as it was time to move on. She showed competitively with her horses, Honor, Dex and Spice and was very successful again!
Madison turned 16 this year and got her driver’s license and a pretty, neon green Geo Tracker. She also finished home schooling and started college. Her first semester she got three A’s and a B. She showed her horse Max in 4H and in open shows around here very successfully too this year. She also broke to ride our little rescue horse Maui. As her birthday trip this year her mother took her to Lollapalooza in Chicago, a very large, multiple stage, concert with about 75 bands playing for three days in Grant Park. That was a blast! We got to see such greats as Lady Gaga and Green Day.
Kristi (Bob’s daughter), and her husband Wes and our granddaughter Riley Ann came to visit a lot or we visited them since they were living in Chicago until July. It was great to see Riley so often; they grow so fast the first year! And it was great to reconnect with Kristi and Wes. With them living in NC, it makes it difficult to see each other often.
Life on the farm went on: we had two kiddings this year, two girls and two boys. The girls are named Athena and Persephone, and the boys are named Hermes and Dionysus. We sold Dionysus as a buck; he went to a wonderful home with lots of pasture to run on and lots of females to mate with. So Dawn is back to making lots of cheese, yogurt, and ice cream again.
The loss of our beloved Happy was tough. He was hit by a car and killed this summer. We miss him badly! He was a free spirit and should have never been or could be contained. That dog wondered farther and farther away and when you live fast, you die young.
We decided to eliminate the pool and put in the adult pool: the hot tub! Well, we tried anyway, time was fleeting and we never did go get one this year. We started on the outdoor kitchen and that ended up taking a back seat too, of course, with the death of Everett.
Also with Everett getting older, Dawn took over the garden this year, totally. We added 8 more raised beds and a pergola to hang the tomatoes from that was Dawn’s brilliant idea to grow them upside down. Well, we should all know better and never believe a commercial; they don’t grow upside down! But in spite of the chaos around here, and not having much time to tend it properly, we did get a nice plethora of veggies from the garden. We ate the last of the ripened tomatoes in December!
Bob did plenty of restoration on the Barn Bar because of the concerts, well maybe not restoration but he did build a couple of decks on the outside of it.
Bob decided it was a good idea to feed the stray cat (and he talks about us!) that came around and set up home on the front woodpile, so her name became Woody. Woody also is feral, so she was impossible to touch, hence the birth of 6 new kittens! Three were given away but three remained, one Sam took with her to her apartment and two stayed here: Theodor and Oaky Doaky. That put us in the double digits for cats then. (She has since been live trapped and spayed.)
We also had a couple of chicks hatched, and a couple of ducks. Sure enough after we ordered 7 new ducks from the hatchery!
All other animals are well: Percy and Louie are still fat and lazy, like Bassets should be, Joe the Cockatiel is still singing, the pig still is annoying, and who else? No one, I guess, we are down to just 64 or 66 animals now, like in the beginning (not sure if we have 25 or 27 chickens, they move so fast its hard to count them).
Bob and Dawn also celebrated their 10th anniversary this year!
So our year in Rochester, MN on The Sanborn Sanctuary has been another whirlwind of adventure and fun, sadness and tears, changes and fears, but overall, each day is just another day in paradise!
Happy New Year!
Bob, Dawn, Samantha & Madison
And all the creatures on the farm : )
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