Aghmhor: a Gaelic word meaning happy, prosperous, lucky

Google Earth photo of the property.  The long narrow strip is our private road, which we named Aghmhor Lane, this leads to our front gate.  The property is trapazoid looking with 25 acres of pastural land, where we plan to have horses and cows and the back 45 acres are heavily wooded with roads, elevation change, ponds and a lot of creek beds.

The progress continues, the doors, windows and some of the insulation has gone into our little house.  We were able to end 2010 sleeping there and waking up celebrating 2011.

We took some of our wild boar bones and made some stew over the fire.  It was a lot of fun and it tasted delicious.  

Our Weatherford House  - this house was a custom built spec home we found almost four years ago.  It's short of 3000 sqft on an one acre lot with great trees.  I'm just posting photos of this house, because it give some perspective on what we've decided to leave behind to realize our dream on our property.   Some people will remember when we found this great house and it is a beautiful house on a really neat loop, but it wasn't hard to realize we just loved our place in Graham so much more, we could have kept the house and just spent weekends out in Graham, but it would have always been a little bitter sweet leaving.  

Last Spring I painted the front door red - I will miss my beautiful red rose bush.  

I thought I'd share some of the photos from 2010 of the property.  Robert found the listing online and we went to look at it the Saturday before Mother's Day in May.  We came back for a second look on Mother's Day on our own with our canoe and kayak.  We knew we wanted it by the end of that day.

Aghmhor Lane

neighbor's horses along side the lane

  

big pond

Audrey taking a photo of me on Mother's Day 

I'm taking a photo of Audrey at the same time she's taking a photo of me...smile.

Fields of Gold - We have wild flowers from Spring into Fall - it's really glorious!

coreopsis 

Where we parked the travel trailer that we've been living in full time since the children started school in the Fall.

Our little trailer - it has a loft 

prickly pear cactus

the flower of the prickly pear cactus

tuna (fruit) of the prickly pear cactus

Jack and I picked quite a few tunas and then I took them back to Weatherford and juiced them.

prickly pear tuna juice

Jennifer's very own 'Tunatini'!

Audrey spotted a rattlesnake this summer, Robert was able to quickly get his gun and shoot it's head off - it was quite an exciting time out in Graham!

little brown betty

our beautiful rooster, Jillian - Robert calls her/him 'bird'...smile.

these purple beauties came out in October

Further back behind the big pond there is a little pond, which we named Audrey's Little Pond - it's beautiful back there.

Fall Hike

Our newest find, High Point - it's up at the top of a hill where you have these huge rocks everywhere - it's my favourite place!

Wishing everyone a very Happy 2011!

'Tis the Season to Hunt All of God's Splendor

Hunting season has started out in Graham.  Unfortunately, my husband who would love to spend his time hunting is busy building our house.  My hunting seams to be of a more solid kind.  I was successful with rock hunting today, a whole truck bed full.  

We are into December now with an abundance of ladybugs - unsure where they're coming from, but they are all over.

On my rock hunt, I found this face looking at me, at least that is what I saw....it's fun to see something new each time you walk around the woods.

Most of the copper metal roofing is up, just the center ridge to be put up tomorrow.  Robert has sheathed the lower floor and has worked so hard while he works full time at his job in Fort Worth.

The most exciting news is the first piece of furniture has entered the house.  As we're living in a trailer, we are losing the battle to winter clothing and now that we have semi-dried in the lower half of the house, we've created a closet in the bathroom.  This will help me from losing my mind and I'm no longer living out of five laundry baskets.

We have a private lane to our front gate, it has pasture land on both sides, one side has some roping calves and two beautiful horses which we enjoy visiting with.

Our little Texas wild flower.......

WARNING.........for those that aren't fond of hunting, please stop here, there will be some photos of our newest hobby.





































Our goal is to become as self sufficient as we can.  We've raised a few goats and laying hens and have happily eaten them and hope to continue to hunt and raise our meat.  This continues to be such an amazing experience and we are so thankful for being able to live and realize more of our dream.

Robert and I went down to the back part of the woods last week to check his hog trap and BINGO!  It was exciting to have our first wild boar.  At first I wanted to photograph the moment, but then I sort of felt weird about it, as I'm new to the hunting/trapping experience, but believe in what we're choosing to do here on our land.  Robert weighed him in at 170 lbs.  The trap is on loan from one of his work colleagues, so we gave 1/2 of the meat to him and the other half is in our freezer.  We're looking forward to making a big pot of chili for Christmas.  We've always wanted to cook something over a campfire in a dutch oven.

As unsure as I felt about this wild creature, Audrey our 5 year old daughter watched almost the whole process of Robert gutting it, skinning it, I think she came inside during the head part, but found it fascinating, which I found fascinating.  She loves animals, but not without understanding of where our meat comes from and it's been interesting to raise the children with respect to how God provides.

He's my Charles to my Caroline...

Our blog started out with the title, "Witherspoon Wilderness" which wasn't exactly what we were looking for, but you have to title it something.  I have since mixed and matched a play on my love of the television show, "Little House on the Prairie" and our new adventure of life on our 72 acres.  Charles built his family their house and Robert's building ours.

Our first thought when we knew we'd live in our trailer initially was to wall in part of a metal building to expand our living space.  A month and a half ago it occurred to me (out of the blue) that it might be fun to build a small cottage. The 'cottage' now is fully framed and has magically turned into our, 'Little House' on our 72 acres.  What an amazing experience, hard to express in a blog, how much of this experience so far has enriched our lives.  I'd like to point out that I've always referred to it as, 'our cottage' you have to know me to understand how I like to put a twist of my style on things around me.  Robert's building plan came from a garage and shed magazine.  It's 1200 sqft and with some clever spacing of walls - we will have three bedrooms, an enclosed laundry/fridge space, sitting room open to the kitchen, den/office space, 1.5 bathrooms and a tv/study room on the upstairs landing and a small wood stove on the main floor.  I'm starting to quickly sense our 'Little House' is my dream house.  I'm smiling about this, because there are many beautiful houses, but building this alongside my husband with our children's help has been a once in a life time experience that I wouldn't trade for anything.

We are truly blessed.  I think what amazes me more is that our lives are better than living a dream and to realize that is such a gift each day.  (side note: oh sure we have our off days, moments and they can get creatively interesting when you mix a Bud with a Darlin' - our names for eachother)

Photos....

Audrey hard at work

building the foundation

Keeping things level...

Audrey the builder

Bud building a strong foundation

A little touch of me during the building process

FIRST WALL FRAMED UP!

Jack learning to use a nail gun.

Robert hand made the floor beams for the second floor - impressive and cost effective to boot!

floor beams up and nailed down

My french doors opening!

second floor framing

Crazy man did this with winds around 30-40 miles/hr and by himself - raising the center beam with no help - of course I could have helped, but would Charles have had Caroline out there in those conditions, apparently not.  

This process required rope and nailed boards to hold each end as he inched it up from one side to the other....love this man!

crazy man who can do almost anything

FIRST MOMENT he patted himself on the back, yelled for me to come out and take photos and was smiling!  Way to go, Bud - you think this was recognized feat, I wish you could watch you through my eyes and see you build this from the beginning and you'd see why you're my hero.

As you can see some of the roof rafters are up and the sun is rising, why is this.....oh because my work horse of a husband started in the dark.......dedication is who he is.....I suppose this posting is a tribute to Robert Lee Witherspoon and why our children are so happy and why I'd live just about anywhere with him.  

blue skies, but windy days

First time we let the children up on the second landing, first landing if you're British reading this.

Stay tuned...........(smile)