Our newest ranch resident

This is Tank. He showed up on the ranch two days ago whining and hiding under our trailer. Skip was in town and I stayed in the trailer until he got back because you just can't tell if a stray will be friendly or dangerous. As it turns out, Tank loves us and we love him. Ginger has a new pal to play with as you can tell by the picture - she is wanting to share her chewy toy with him. He is very gentle, appears healthy, has a great appetite and is gentle with our old dog, Casey. We will get him all checked out at the vet tomorrow and also put up a notice at the Fina gas station in case he has caring owners. Right now, because he had no collar and was very submissive, we think he was abused and dumped. We named him Tank because he has a white "T" marking on his chest and he's certainly built like a tank. :)

More adventures on the ranch!

Beginning design for the front gate

This is actually a fireplace plate but we had been looking for an eagle for the front gate and this was exactly what Skip wanted. We found it and ordered it off the internet. It reminds him of the American eagle used in many military insignias and of course the Army crest. We will take it to the local welder/fence maker to weld on a black rodiron gate for the front of the property. Don't know yet whether we will actually have the lettering "Eagle Ranch" or not. Still designing - :)

Vaya con Dios amigos!

The Eagle has landed

We found this eagle sculpture at the Hemispheres outlet store in Sherman and plan to build a fountain in the front of the house to put in on. It is resting in our "garden" in front of the trailer for now. We just love to look at it and visualize where it will be, inviting folks at the front of the house to "Eagle Ranch". Can't wait!

Speaking of waiting. . . what an understatement! We are waiting for the appraisal to get back so we can break ground. Should be today. We'll see - nothing moves fast around here! In the meantime, it's COLD and with a little rain, we are mostly honkered down in the trailer working on the computer, writing Christmas cards or cooking. I am getting very creative with soups these days. I just made one yesterday with leeks, potatoes, spinach and ham. Delish!

We are looking forward to some warmer days this weekend so we can get some more things done around here. With cooler, dry days, we plan to do some more trimming up on the trees around here. Plus, we need to plant the thirty trees in containers, and the 15 smaller trees we just picked up from the USDA office in Bonham. We are hiring a friends ranch manager and crew to help us. The larger trees are too heavy for us to lift. We made out a schematic of where we will plant. And will probably mark the places with our orange landscaping paint. We also have to get more lava sand and an organic compost to put around the trees after planting. These are organic products we like to use but we will have to go to Sherman to find them. Hopefully all will be planted by Christmas.

More later! Vaya con Dios

all our household goods home on the land

Apologies to all for not posting recently. We have been busy with Thanksgiving et al.

Thought you might want to see our storage system - the two very large containers we have down by the garden to store all our belongings - always more than we think! It was a labor of love to bring them all here but so worth it to have them close to us. Now we can get to our winter clothes and even Christmas decorations!

We are meeting with our builder and our mortgage person to finalize the contract today at 1:30 - our builder would have done the house on a handshake, which is literally how they do it here in the country (still!). But our lender wants everyone covered and so we will walk him through the more detailed document. I do not want to offend this nice man - he really is so plain spoken and honest. But this is a step we are required to take - and then we will close on the construction loan in about two days. So exciting! Big celebration when ground is finally broken!!

More later - vaya con
Dios!

Beautiful sunrise on a Friday morning

Final plans go to the mortgage company

We have had such a busy two weeks, I haven't had a moment to post!

Here's the latest:

We had the 40 cubic yard trash container, fully packed, picked up and carried away to the dump. What a joy to see all that trash off our land! And we made two more trips to the metal reclaim yard to dump metal. We also arranged with the county commissioner to use his dumpster at the county road works to dump all the composite shingles.

What a job but we feel so satisfied that what we envisioned we could do, actually was accomplished - :) There are still a few small piles of trash we need to finish off, but we feel very good about the appraisal - which should be this week.

We met a couple more times with "Bill the Builder", as we call him. We feel really good about the entire budget and with a little compromise, we were able to get the house we want. We think Bill is pretty excited about the final plan. This house will have a much more unique look than many of the houses he has done. Two weeks ago, we traveled about two hours away into Oklahoma to a company that makes stone facings. We sat down with pictures, and they were able to put together a "palette" of colors of stone that we think will look good. They will be making a sample palette and sending it to Bill so we can have it to match up wood stains and tile.

Last week, we also had two large 10 x 60 ft. containers put down by the circle and the garden shed and took four days and four trips with a UHaul to transfer all our household goods here on the property. I can't tell you how happy we are to have our things with us again - and we are saving money with this storage option versus the Dallas storage units. But it was hard work and this week we are relaxing!

We met with our mortgage agent and have submitted all the paperwork and will have an appraisal done sometime this week. She said we can expect to close on the construction loan in about three weeks which will be the first week in December. We should have a pad poured by Christmas and maybe even the framing. Wow!

More later - and I'll put in pictures of the storage containers -
Love to all!

The Mini-Bull Competition

These were 11 and 12 year old boys from around our county competing on mini-bull riding to win a big belt buckle. They were so amazing and ALL BOY! They had on chaps and some wore special vests to protect their neck and head, and also helmets. And some just went out there with a beatup cowboy hat and hung on for dear life. These bulls did not look very "mini" to us - but we are so new to all this. And the attitudes and self-confidence of these youngsters was wonderful. The older cowboys are all around making sure everything is as safe as it can be under the circumstances, and always make sure that one of them speaks to the little guys after they get off with words of encouragement. Most of the little cowboys would go down on one knee after the ride, in an obvious moment with God. It was all so great to watch - this little microcosm of America at its best.

We had a second meeting with our builder to finalize our budget. He should have all the numbers by tomorrow. The mortgage rep is just waiting for us to set a meeting to get started on the construction loan. It's all coming together. We will probably travel to Sherman today to look at some stone and brick for selection. And we also need to pick out the composite shingle. (The red tile roof was just too expensive!)

Last night we experienced some high winds. It's always a little hard to sleep when this happens. But the old trailer really weathers well. We finally had to turn the heat on last night for the first time this year.

More later. Love to all.

Trash container half full :( Yukky stuff

Our own small grove of trees

These are our new trees! Some of them were terribly damaged in transit (we did not pay for those) so we will be using the "sick tree treatment" organically to revive all of them. And hopefully in the spring they will all have healthy new foliage. We may plant some this winter depending on what equipment we have to help dig the holes.

We travel into Dallas (again!) today to finalize kitchen design, pick up a "military" looking fireplace mantel we found on sale for the living room and four "sun tunnel" skylights we bought through the Dallas Homeshow at two for the price of one. We will be putting these light saving devices into our master closet, bathroom and my studio where they will provide natural daylight.

On the way back home, we are loading a Bobcat walk-behind loader to help us get the last of the trash loaded on the trash container. It is a much welcomed assist to a hard job!

More later - vaya con Dios
:)

Why does the chicken cross the road?

There should be a great joke here! This chicken (rooster, we think) has adopted us after he escaped from the rodeo some weeks ago. We are putting out food for him, but he is happier as a free-range rooster and does actually roost in our treeline out by the gate. Ginger has not discovered him yet :) We have named him "Rodeo" for obvious reasons. Rodeo is our first official farm animal!

We have been very busy (and tired!) pulling out trash these last weeks. We had a 40 yard trash container delivered and are filling it up gradually. We try not to think how angry it makes us to see what people have so carelessly done to the land. But dump sites are very common on ranches, sometimes to correct erosion issues and sometimes just because they can. We are sure this property lay unused for years with open access from the hardtop road, and either people got permission to dump or did it anyway. Some folks just bury it but we would like to get it out of here! And eventually we will dig out a second pond in that area for the cattle.

We also bought 30 shade trees from a tree farm that was liquidating its inventory. We got 10 live oak, 10 chinese pistachio, 5 burr oak and 5 red oak. All of these, except the live oak will have great color changes and grow into 40 - 50 foot shade trees. The live oak stays green all year and in the spring, the new leaves simply push the old leaves off. All these trees are drought tolerant and will do well in our soils. I need new batteries for the camera, so I'll post a picture of the trees tomorrow.

We will travel into Dallas today to meet with the kitchen designer and the folks from the Ft. Worth Brick and Tile Company. They have the saltillo tile we will be putting through most of the house. We'll get their estimate today after they look at the houseplans. Our builder has the final plans now and is coming up with the budget for construction. We are making decisions now about the windows, doors, flooring, fixtures etc. It's hard to sleep at night imagining all these different elements. I could do this forever! (And sometimes it seems like we have been!)

The Rodeo Club is having a miniature bull riding contest on the 21st - will try to include some more pictures.

More later! Vaya con Dios!

The rodeo has come and gone

This was the view across the road for three days while the Honey Grove Rodeo went on. All the bulls, broncos and horses were in the same corral, very peaceful. Much different than when they were in the ring at night. I couldn't take a night picture when the whole place was lit up like a carnival!

The Rodeo started every night at eight o'clock and ended around ten thirty. Country music played in the background while the announcer called out every event. It was magical! And right in our "front yard". We helped by taking tickets at the gate. We met the nicest people! And they all seem to know who we are - word gets around very fast. But we are treated with nothing but kindness and a little curiosity - only natural. They all wonder why we chose Honey Grove and we tell them we really grew up without a "home town" and now we have one!

We sponsored the Rodeo Clown and our name was in the program. We wanted to because it's his last rodeo for a while since he's in the reserve and is being deployed to Iraq. We were so proud to meet him and support him. He really is an important part of the entertainment and excitement. And the kids just love him!

The kids were a huge part of this rodeo. Every night there was an event called "mutton busting" where the wranglers would lower a child (as young as three) onto the back of a large sheep in the chute - the kids would wrap their arms and legs tightly around the neck and belly and off they would go! Unafraid! Amazing!

And then a little later in the evening, they would gather all the children in middle of the arena and release baby goats, chickens, ducks, piglets and bunnies. And whatever the kids caught they took home! It was hilarious watching all these children running full speed after these animals! It only took about five minutes and there were these delighted children holding a new goat or chicken or whatever.

And, of course, lots of patriotism! The national anthem and a prayer every night. It doesn't get better than this! Except maybe next year when we plan to have all three grandsons here to watch! Wonderful entertainment.

We can't wait til next year!

Vaya con Dios!

A trip to Paris

We took Zach to Paris, TX today, 19 miles away, to visit our "farm" store, Atwoods. They have six different tubs with baby chicks and baby ducks. He was mesmerized! They do not allow you to pick up the chicks but we had a great time anyway.

We also looked at John Deere EVERTHING - mostly child toys - it's amazing in the country, there is, of course, a different demand for different product. And with a great emphasis on farming, things like John Deere anything is in demand.

Sarah and Zach pulled off the ranch about 1 p.m. It's hard when any of our kids and their kids leave. There is a great silence - and we miss them very much. But we celebrate their independence and look to each other for companionship, and love life! And, of course, wait for the next visit!

Vaya con Dios! Until next time!

Zach and Granddad fishing

Nothing like a visit from a grandson!

This is Zachariah - he is almost three (birthday on the 23rd of Sept) and the third of our wonderful grandsons. ( I know there is the wrong light here but the profile is priceless!) He and his mom, our Sarah, came to visit and stay the night for Granddad's birthday.

We set up the tent and the little blow-up swimming pool, because it's still a little hot during the day. They arrived about 3 p.m. on Saturday and we started the visit with a tour through the tent - Zachariah's first tent - and then the much demanded trip in Nana's car sitting in the front seat with no seat belt - going about five miles an hour down to the garden - with Ginger running full speed along the side of the car. Zach gets a big charge out of picking food items straight from the garden. And as the garden is on it's way out for the summer, I was worried about success. Not to worry! We picked two cantaloupes and seven summer squash. He was thrilled.

Back to the trailer and Granddad says, "How about a trip around the pond?" And off they go,

Skip, Sarah and Zach for about an hour and a half of great fishing on the pond - while I'm back making potato salad and getting steaks ready to put on the grill - Two hours later, we are seated on the deck having a great supper. And later, although we were going to have roasted marshmallows, we decided on popcorn which Granddad made on the fire. It was wonderful! We watched the stars come out and all retired to get some rest for the night.

More later -

giving to our new home town

We have joined the Honey Grove Rodeo club - hey! It's right across the street! And although Skip and I don't plan to do any rodeoing (is that a word?) we do want to help keep it happy and solvent - sooooo - I repainted their sign for the highway and Skip is busy repainting the rodeo barrels for the clowns and the rodeo barrels we plan to put along our side of the highway where people park to encourage the proper deposit of trash. We think a positive effort willl encourage a positive effort - :)

The rodeo is a week and a half away - we'll let you know how our strategy is working - yeehaa!

Turning over the garden for fall

I spent half a day couple of days ago turning what I could in the garden. Put all the tomato cages and bean poles away and the only thing left still growing are the cantaloupes - still have four getting ripe, and they are worth the wait - so delicious!

I will probably plant some more beans and beets. And then wait for cooler weather to start lettuce and cabbage for fall.

I would take a picture but it's not real pretty right now. We are, however, happy to have the land mowed. It's already greening up again.

Finalizing the plans (again!) with the draftsperson in Bonham for the house. We are researching windows and doors for the best solutions. So many decisions and we haven't really nailed down the inside appliances yet. But hopefully, we are learning more and more and will choose wisely.

I did find my favorite welder home the other day and since I hadn't been able to reach him by phone, I thought he might have moved away. But luckily he will be the one doing the iron door I designed for the pantry. I got all the iron from King Architectural over in Mesquite, my favorite place to shop! And I gave him the picture of the spanish iron door he will replicate. I can't wait to show a picture when it's finished!

More soon - vaya con Dios!

More junky junk

Here are more refrigerators, ovens and junk we pulled up to the road with a logging chain. These are heavy items and we need to remove the condensors from the refrigerators before the dump will accept them. We really are happy to get this stuff off the land. And it will greatly improve our appraisal when we have no trash here.

After we get all these large items out, we still need to clean up a lot of glassware, old tires and some roof shingles. That will be labor intensive and we may rent a Bobcat to handle it.

Get this trash out of here

We are starting to pull the ugly dumped trash off our land! We had some estimates on someone else doing the job, but decided we can save money and do it ourselves. Here is the first load ready to take to the metal salvage yard near Paris, TX, only about 10 minutes away.

Foggy morning at the dock

I took this picture at 7 a.m. this morning. Very misty with the sun just beginning to clear the tops of the trees and work it's way up to 99 today!

We are trying innovative ways to stay cool during these very hot days. The air conditioner in the trailer works but by about 1 p.m. in the afternoon, the interior temperature is about 90 degrees. So we either take a nap with the extra fans directly on us, or run into town and spend a couple of hours at Walmart just wandering around. Cheap thrills! We also found out that the movies in Bonham, with stadium seating, are still only $3.00 for seniors. Works for us!

After receiving our final plans back from the architects in Kerrvillle, we met with our builder and decided our eyes had been a little too big for our pocketbook. We have learned so much, and actually have no regrets about making a smaller plan. So we dug out software we have had for about ten years and designed it ourselves. We are much happier sitting here for the last four days and drawing what we think is good for us (and future visitors). So we delivered the drawings to a draftsperson in Bonham and she will make an "official" drawing we can all work from. We just want to do this right and not have regrets about getting in over our head or settling for something that won't work for us.

In the meantime, with the drier weather, we are very busy getting the ranch "squared away". We had our land mowed last week, and although there is a lot of dry grass laying around, we are so happy to see over our horizons again. We have also mowed out in front of our land along the county road and picked up all the inevitable trash that is either thrown or flies out of the back of pickup trucks. Don't understand how people can do either one of those things - wasn't raised that way. The summer garden is ready to plow under and prepare for a second crop or a fall garden later. My most successful plants were acorn squash, tomatoes, corn, beans, zucchini, summer squash and cantelopes. I made a lot of notes in my garden book for reference later when I plant again. The grapes never really took off, either too much rain or they weren't good plants to begin with. They are only about 16" high and not healthy. I will try to salvage them for next year but plan to get better plants, probably muscatine grapes which grow very well in our soil.

We continue to be so thankful for where we are and what we're doing, especially together. I leave for Colorado tomorrow and know I will miss Skip so much. And I'm sure, just like when our kids were small and we were away from them for any length of time, the land will look so different when I get back. But as always, there will be a list of things to do! Can't wait!

Vaya con Dios

Looks small but we love it!

Our first part of a floating dock system

After pricing the building of our own dock (at a whopping $17000 - and I'm not kidding!), we decided to put all of Skip's engineering skills to use building our own version at a fraction of the cost.

Here is the first section - we will have at least one more section, maybe two and a gangplank. Think grandsons!

We will include railings and a lifesaver ring buoy in an obvious place for emergencies - go figure, three young boys on a floating raft trying to fish in future years - someone is going in the water! While they are young and inexperienced swimmers, we will provide life vests.

The first section is 8' by 8' and floats well, thank you very much. We purchased bright blue 55 gallon plastic drums for $10 each from a little old lady in Melissa (on our way to and from Dallas). But as Skip built the frame and surface that would "sit" over the drums, we realized it would be very heavy. And it was. We estimated at about 600 lbs. So as we built it, we were very respectful of the dangers involved. Skip built a "template" on two 4" by 4" timbers and we supported them on steel saw horses. Once it was built, we carefully backed our 12' trailer underneath the structure, removed the sawhorses and lowered it onto the trailer for transport. For days, both of us discussed the way we would launch the dock. For me - some nightmares about everything that could go wrong. But with lots of time to troubleshoot, Skip really came up with a great idea.

We drove our four-wheel drive Honda down to the shoreline and backed up the trailer. Now the planning really mattered. We carefully lifted the dock onto 4 steel drums right side up. Then we worked the blue plastic drums into their positions under the dock and used our tie-down straps to hold the drums up against the dock from underneath. Then we rolled our small utility trailer from our riding lawn mower under the structure and removed the drums and rested the dock on top of the little trailer with two wheels. Then we were able to "guide" the trailer to the deepest drop off on the shoreline and roll it into the water. We had attached a rope to the trailer so we could pull it out. And Skip had also installed three large eye hooks on the side of the dock and tied a rope to one of them so we wouldn't watch the dock float away after the launch. It all worked so well! And the result is we have a great start on a good dock so we can fish in the deepest part of the pond and cast without hanging up on the shoreline plants.

Building and launching the dock after months of waiting on house plans and rainfall is a huge tonic to both of us! Skip put a lawn chair and his tackle box on the dock and we can see the chair from the trailer. Priceless!

We did receive final changes on the house and the electrical plan yesterday, plus the elevations, which show how the house will look from all angles. All in all, a great week! We are blessed, and humbled. We will enlarge the electrical plans over the weekend and send in changes. We are supposed to get blueprints by next Friday. We will probably open champagne on that day.

Love to all!

Grandsons come to visit!

We were so happy to have a dry day when the grandsons came to visit last weekend! We are, admittedly, very tired of being wet!

Skip has gotten all three grandsons new cane poles and outfitted them with hook, line and bobbers - and we have stocked our small refrigerator outside with worms. They caught a fish on every cast! Little Zach came up three weeks ago and christened the first rod - I will get pictures from Sarah and post soon. Nothing like having little boys here to enjoy the great outdoors and take advantage of our healthy and well-stocked pond! And we haven't done anything - it came that way! :)

It really was good to have a dry day - we still haven't had the land mowed because of the weather. We also have a second man coming out in the next few days to give us an estimate on hauling away the trash dump sites we have on the land. Unfortunately, for many years, our property was the closest place for the rodeo to dump old appliances, bottles, cans and tires. So we have two or three sites we want to clean up before we get the land re-appraised. (It affected our land by $10,000!) We will probably haul the old refrigerators ourselves to a local metal recycle site and get paid! The rest we will hire a man and a backhoe to remove. We have to be careful because there is great oversight at the local county trash sites and if there is too much dirt removed with the trash, we have to get soil testing done which is verrrry expensive.

In the meantime, we have sent final changes back to the architect and they are finalizing the drawings and making an elevation (drawing) of front and back to send us. Should be tomorrow - then it's off to the races! We will meet with the builder and start the money end.

More later - love to all!

Happy Independence Day!

This was the sunset on the evening of July 4th. We had a beautiful and dry day for the first time in almost three weeks. I made three dishes from fresh vegetables picked from our garden and we cooked out on the grill. What a peaceful time . . .

We have had so much rain the land is just plain soggy - our big truck is stuck in the slick grass so we are leaving it parked there until it dries out a little. Our man who does the shredding still hasn't been able to get out to mow the pastures :(

But we are staying optimistic because we feel lucky to be here. We know the days will come where we long for a little rain. In the meantime, since we can't really do much on the land, we continue to work inside reading up on all the decisions we will have to make on appliances, lighting, fixtures, flooring etc. We want to be able to make the decisions as efficiently as possible when our builder asks. We are also doing a lot of research online. What did we do before the internet?? Not only can I get great decorating ideas, but there are many sites where comparisons are available on almost anything - so interesting.

All in all, we think the fact that we haven't broken ground yet is probably good, since the big trucks would be tearing up the land -

We have been delayed at the architects since the draftsman took a week's vacation and the architect was ill for a week - then the fourth of July holiday - my patience is wearing a little thin because nothing can happen without the final plans. They are finalizing the elevations (drawings of the front and back of the house) and the plumbing and electrical drawings. Any day now. . .

We are also planning a road trip down to Gonzalez, TX (south of San Antonio) where there is a large architectural salvage store where they have an inventory of 5,000 doors we can look at - Wow! And maybe shutters as well. Can't wait!

More later - vaya con Dios - love to all!

Our new deck and pergola with awning!

rain, rain and more rain!

We are so blessed with all the rain in the last two weeks - the garden is a jungle, the wildflowers are still producing new varieties and the pond is very full. We are in our second day of sunshine and so happy to be out working on the land again.

We are still waiting for the pastures to be shredded - the man who does the mowing is waiting for the land to dry out a little before he comes. We got our own truck stuck on the wet grass for a couple of days so we know the problem. Our little mower is on the blink again :( We really don't want to spend the money on a new riding mower but it looks more and more like we need to. Our"living" area around the trailer is looking shabby and we like to keep it "squared away". If need be, we will mow with our push mower so the grass doesn't get too high where we live.

The newest improvements include a wonderful deck Skip built right off the trailer - we were so lucky he finished it just before all the rain. It means we can step outside and onto the deck and not get our feet wet! We also put together the iron pergola to go on the deck. I hand sewed a bright fabric awning to shield us from the sun.

And of course we erected a 20'Flagpole with the American Flag - (We put the Texas flag down by the garden!) Nothing like the flag flying to get your spirits moving!

As we prepare for the annual Honey Grove Rodeo right across the highway (on the Fourth of July weekend), we are getting to know new friends and lending a helping hand. I am painting the 55 gallon drums the rodeo clown uses to distract the bulls, and also the 55 gallon drums we will paint and place along our property line on the county road, hopefully encouraging people to throw their trash in the containers instead of into our pasture! Skip and I also contributed two brand new 20' flagpoles with the American Flag and the Texas Flag.

We submitted our final changes to the architect and are hoping to have the final plans in our hands next week. We will then schedule a meeting with our builder to sign a contract, start working on a building budget and plot out the floor plan with stakes to get an idea of where to position the house. Can't wait for the groundbreaking to begin!!!

More later - vaya con Dios

waiting for the hay shredder

We have scheduled the pastures to be shredded but our "shredder" is delayed waiting for parts to his tractor. Our pasture is almost waist-high now and very pretty, full of natural wheat, lots of native grasses and flowers galore! I will take pictures this weekend to log all the different varieties. On the small pasture up by the gate, the clover is prolific and the scent in the air is heavenly - like perfume - We have to walk up there to get the mail every day and it's always a joy to make that walk!


Took a trip to Ft. Worth on Tuesday and met with the Ft. Worth Brick and Tile folks. We are selecting an authentic Mexican tile called Saltillo - imported through this company from Mexico - and what will be the prevalent floor covering throughout the house. It is the same kind of tile used at Pueblo Bonito - the resort in Mazatlan we try to visit every year. We came home with samples to show the builder and a great feeling about the quality of the product.

Meanwhile back at the ranch . . .
Our little garden tractor has finally given up the ghost. Looks like we travel into town tomorrow to see what we can purchase for our little jobs around the ranch. We use the little tractor to haul small items around, mow the areas around the trailer, the garden, along the road and in the vineyard. It will be interesting to weigh the future of what a large tractor will do and what a small one will - and decide if we need both. Most ranchers around here find plenty of jobs for both.

This week I traveled to Bonham to purchase compost - actually horse manure - to add to the compost heap for the garden. Met some great folks at Hannah's Horseshoes for Hope - a non-profit therapeutic horse ranch for the disabled. They load the manure in old feed bags and you contribute what you want. Great folks, good cause - a definite feel-good moment.

And yesterday was a real red-letter day! We received our first draft of the house plan - now it's Skip and I hovered over the plan with pencils and tracing paper trying to fine tune our dream. We could not be more excited. I say that thinking that when they pour the pad - I will say the same thing - and when the house gets framed - another high note.

More later - vaya con Dios!

Little birds abide

My little cement bird bath is making the cement blocks look a little classier in the garden - it's fun to "plug in" items that will eventually go in our yard - to the places where we are spending a lot of time right now. I dream of the day when this little bird bath will sit somewhere in the courtyard between the house and the guesthouse. :)
More later. . .

The new potting shed

Here's the shed all done and full of equipment - some of Skip's tools until he has his own shop as part of the house and garage, and all of our garden tools and supplies. It's so nice to have all these important things under proper protection and out from under the blue tarps up by the trailer. We are sure our neighbors are breathing a sigh of relief as we begin to look a little more organized.

We bought a metal pergola which is like a very artistic four cornered structure that I will design some canvas covering for to protect us from the sun outside the trailer during the summer. I'm thinking some bright colors in stripes that float in the wind. We'll see . . .

Vaya con Dios!

The blossoms of the acorn squash

new garden growing fast!

We have been so blessed with the many inches of rainfall in the last few weeks. Last year was not like this at all. Our native wheat is knee-high and so healthy! We have scheduled a "shredding" or mowing for next week and we expect to get 450 square bales of native grass. There are two ladies down the road with goats that love organic hay so we will try to make a sale - our first one and very necessary to declare our agricultural exemption for taxes.

Above is a picture of the garden as of this morning. It was so foggy out it felt like a brisk morning in England! But about 10 o'clock the sun burned it off and we are having an 80 degree day. The vegetables are thriving with all the rain and then the warm sun. I added three sweet potato plants, three broccoli plants and some summer squash to the garden yesterday. They were the last of the garden plants drastically reduced at the farm store. I had to hurry by the remainder of the baby chicks for sale - maybe next year!

This morning in the fog, I walked out to the far acres up against the road to check the purple hyacinth vine I planted on the fence line. It's one of my favorite vines I used to plant on our mailbox. It climbs about five feet and then produces these hyacinth-like blossoms, deep purple and beautiful. Can't wait to see them along this country road fence and up by our gate.

Vaya con Dios!

Trip to Fredericksburg and Kerrville

5/3

Lots to report since our last post! Not only is the garden in and growing well with lots of recent rain, but we have successfully erected the 11 x 26 foot garden shed - or what we will call my potting shed in the future :) pictured here.

We traveled to Kerrville last week to meet with the architectural folks that are helping us design the house. We really liked the designs they had on their website - a mixture of the Texas hill country look which is timbering and stone and a Tuscan or more european "old world" look.

We drove down last Thursday and stayed at a most unusual bed and breakfast in Fredericksburg, TX. Built by a former rock band player from the sixties, and his wife, a trained chef, they have designed a small adobe village in the hill country, including a small opera house, the biggest collection of children's cap guns (!) numbering in the thousands, a small catholic chapel, an underground grotto pool for swimming and an outstanding gourmet restaurant. They book a lot of weddings there and are in the process of adding at least 6 more individual suites to accommodate guests. It was a very interesting place to stay. But a little too much adobe for me - our room was almost damp with moisture from the walls.


On Friday, after an unbelievably good breakfast there, we traveled to the architects office for almost a whole day of pouring over plans at a large table. We had previously taken one of their books of plans home, but could not decide on a specific plan. So on this day, we tried to narrow down our choices, and at around 2 p.m. we took a short trip to a home they were building in a neighborhood about 6 miles away. Turned out to be a great decision. We think we found very close to what we will need - so now the honing down process begins, as they take our changes and come up with our hacienda! They said it would take around 2 months to complete. We are hoping for a quicker turnaround. We traveled home that day, exhausted but happy!

Vaya con Dios!

The garden is planted

4/17

We spent the better part of Thursday putting down the cement blocks for our "raised" garden. What a job! Then used the last of our packing boxes from the move to line the gardens with cardboard - this will decompose well and in the meantime prevent weeds. :)

Then Skip loaded the top soil we had ordered into the beds. And we mixed in lava sand, organic compost, molasses, humate, blood meal and greensand. This all makes a healthy, happy environment for organic matter to thrive. Soon, we will turn the earth and there will be earthworms, the expert composters! Can't wait! Since my many of my little seedlings didn't survive the move, we had to buy some bedding plants and more seeds.

Here is a list of what has been planted so far:

Tomatoes, Green Peppers, Lemon Balm, Fennel, Basil, Scallions, Spinach, Chives, Marigolds, Acorn Squash, Sweet Corn, English Cucumbers, Dill, Cucumbers, Cantelope, Watermelon, Pumpkins, Sunflowers, Pole Beans, Bush Beans, Oregano, Italian Flat Leaf Parsley and Strawberries.

I still want to plant some black-eyed peas, Skip's favorite! And I still need to plant an herb garden up by the travel trailer. I'll probably just use the leftover large pots we moved here that are just sittin' around.

We also got a 25 gallon water carrier that we can pull behind the lawn tractor so I can hand-water the garden until we get a well dug or pull in water with a pump from the pond.
Thankfully, we are watching a gentle rain this afternoon - the good Lord's gift from above

Vaya con Dios!

The new road being built

4/10

This is the dump truck that made six trips yesterday to start the driveway. It will take them three days and 18 loads to complete the job. It is starting to look like someone has a plan here! I'm sure our neighbors are curious - no one has come over but they are quiet, country people and we know we will meet soon. Our nearest neighbors we have already met, both school teachers in Honey Grove and nice, nice folks.

We also had "Bear" Lane over yesterday with his associate, John Martin to put down the organic fertilizers we are using to improve the pasture. Lots of garlic tea, liquid molasses, and what they call a "power booster". All natural ingredients , and with a light rain yesterday, the soil should soak it up and all the beneficial processes should start. Earthworms is a goal! This approach doesn't happen overnight, but in a year's time, we should see a marked improvement. We made the decision several years ago to go organic. Our small cocker spaniel was having seizures and we thought stopping the use of artificial fertilizers on the lawn might help. It did. Since we have gone organic, all seizures have stopped. That was enough for us to change.

Tomorrow the cinderblock will be delivered and we can start constructing the raised bed vegetable garden. I will be late in planting, so might have to use more established plants and fewer seeds. I can't wait to start!! Bad news about the grapes: The late freeze we had over the weekend might have killed them. We will see in the next few days how they fare.

Today we make a trip into the city - More later.

Vaya con Dios!

Waking up on this Texas hill!

4/10

It's so good to wake up every morning on this Texas hill! We finally got all our belongings either stored or moved up here to Honey Grove - what a job! I think it's the most tired we've been yet - but a week later we are feeling more settled. Still sorting out where every little thing belongs in the trailer - a really small space after a house. And we are hoping our "patch" job will hold on the roof - especially over our bed.

We met with the builder, Bill, last week and spent the day walking the property and choosing a site for the house. He's a great guy, twinkling blue eyes with weathered smile lines and a Texas cowboy tan from being outside. He's very easy to talk to and has a mild, pleasant and easy-going personality. We've seen about six of the houses he has built in the area and he has great attention to detail, especially on the interiors. He's started out as a mason, just like his dad, and does beautiful stone work, which is one reason we sought him out. And I know some of what we are designing for the house will be a challenge for him. But he hasn't seemed concerned about our design questions so far. And speaking of the design, we are still flipping through the book we got from the folks in Austin to finalize our choice.

Yesterday was the busiest day yet on the ranch! Billy Clements showed up early to scrape the 40' by 80' area for my garden so we can start building the raised beds. He also prepared the spot for the potting shed beside the garden. Skip and I had already mowed where the road should go. Above is a picture of the mowed road ready for gravel.

The grapes are in!

3/24

Sorry no pictures with this post! Lost the digital camera on our trip to Mexico and just haven't had the time to get a new one - but I will soon. I hate recording these events without pictures!

I've had the six grapevines we bought in the laundry room, sticking out of a cardboard box for a week - everyday checking to make sure they were okay, giving them water in their plastic bag if needed and hoping we would get them in the ground before they died.

Well, yesterday we decided to suspend packing for one day and scoot up to Honey Grove to take all our yard stuff and get the grapes in - SUCCESS! It was a mild, beautiful day. Just a soft wind and kind of overcast, about 70 degrees. Gorgeous! So we packed the trailer with the grill, our Adirondack chairs, our birdbaths, the lion fountain and even the metal trout fish - all the yard art we love, and of course, the grapevines and headed north. The dogs were especially happy to romp around the property while we unloaded. We put most of the yard art up by the home site and we placed our two chairs where the house will be. We even put the chimenea there to lite when we are sitting there at sunset musing about the construction. :)

Then, we got busy on the grapevines. Skip put in the cedar support posts and we dug the holes for the vines. I soaked them in a bucket of water first to saturate the roots. Then in they went! I still haven't gotten the "grow tubes" to protect them from deer. So I'm hoping they won't discover the grapes until I can get them in on Monday. We will put in the large support posts on each end of the rows when we can sink them in cement on Monday. Then string wire at two levels across each row to support the growing vines. We have three varieties of grapes to try out, all seedless. More on that later.

We were tired when we finally left about 4 p.m. and always a little sad to leave. Soon we will be living there everyday! Can't wait. Now back to packing up - today we will be packing the rest of the furniture. Hope it all fits in the storage unit!

Vaya con Dios!

The conestoga!

Our transition and "cozy conestoga"

3/15/07

We are up to our waists in boxes now, deciding what can be stored for up to six months while we build the house. I know I will miss my kitchen things the most! The travel trailer, which we call our "cozy conestoga", is a 35 footer and very comfy for weekends so far. We have a kitchen, bedroom (a 6' by 6' raised level that just fits a queen size mattress), a small shower, small bathroom and living room (6' by 6'). We had some leaks in the bedroom ceiling over the winter but are in the process of sealing them - and the warmer days help because the sealing material expands to seal the small cracks. We're going up this weekend to see if the recent rains got in or not. And Skip is replacing the two ceiling exhaust fans in the bathroom and shower. They were broken and water came through them as well. We are anxious to repair all situations before we move in but some will be ongoing. We are still wondering why the water heater suddenly decided to stop making hot water. We've taken it apart once and now think it might need a new heating element. Thank goodness for the internet! We are able to research repair advice for everything from the riding lawn mower to the trailer leak issues.

So as we are packing up all our things and only saving the bare necessities to live in the trailer, I know both of us are wondering how we will handle this new adventure. It's so exciting - like a really long camping trip. And both of us love the outdoors. I have started four trays of seedlings for the future garden. Skip thought I was crazy but I told him it makes me happy to see the little sprouts come up among all this chaos. As I am packing boxes I go check on their progress. I bought 55 packs of seeds in all - only could plant 10 packs early. The rest go right in the ground once we have the garden ready.

And this weekend we will run up to Honey Grove and put in our six first grapevines. We bought 3 different varieties to see which will do the best. I am trying to find "grow tubes" before we go up - they will help keep the deer from eating the brand new shoots.

We will also be putting up our mailbox! We have to stop by the local office of the Texas Department of Transportation to pick up our support pole - (who knew all this!) because we are located on a principal highway. And then we sink that in some cement and attach our mailbox to it with some reflectors on the support pole.

All in all, a very busy week! I will be getting a new camera shortly (left the old one in Mexico in the taxi cab over vacation!) Need to document with pictures!!

Have a blessed week! Vaya con Dios!

Looking for the land

2/27/07

We looked for just the right piece of land for over two years and finally found our "hill of dreams" in Honey Grove, Texas in July of 2005. Just over 27 acres, it's just enough to keep us very busy in our retirement years and not big enough to exhaust us!

In the beginning, we would come up for the weekend and camp just to start familiarizing ourselves with the lay of the land, where the prevailing winds were coming from, rainfall affects to the property and the all around atmosphere. There is a different smell to open land, especially land that is on the high ground. I love that fresh smell. . .and at night, you have never seen so many stars. They go on forever. We often see up to 5 sattelites pass by in the night sky.

Our dog, Ginger, is probably the single-most excited member of the family when we visit the land. She is out of the car and in an open run to the 3 acre pond as fast as she can. A golden retriever never had it so good!