We've got all types of pressure in life...

Under Pressure....that is what Bud is feeling these days!

The romance of living minimally sometimes wears thin.  I'm laughing as I type this, but honestly sometimes I think I might not make it and then, BUD brings home water!  It has never been so painfully obvious how much we depend on Robert to provide for us and this blog entry is dedicated to the man that makes the little miracles happen in our everyday lives.

These series of photos are of Robert's trenching and laying pipe for over 3,000 ft., over half a mile.  We were fortunate to have Mike's Westside Rental in Graham, TX for the large ride on trenching machine.  We also were fortunate to get one solid roll of 1.25 in. black polyethylene pipe, which allowed Robert to roll it off into the trench.

WE HAVE PRESSURE...the good kind!  We got 90 psi which I have learned is EXCELLENT  pressure for water traveling from the water meter for over 3,000 ft of pipe.  We are still 60 ft short from the house, but I'm just thankful for water flowing this far!

We spent the weekend washing clothes by hand outside and although I'll probably be thrilled when I get my front loaders here in a few weeks.  I found the children and I had a lot of fun.

Something we don't think about when we grow up in the city is septic tanks.  At our other house in Weatherford, we have a septic tank system, but it was already in place and not something I thought a whole lot about.  Well.......I've learned probably more than I want to know, such as lateral lines and cement versus plastic.  Our big purchase over the weekend was this lovely yellow beauty of a tank......worth a pretty penny, I'll tell you!

1000 GALLONS 

While we were getting the tank off the truck what did I step in........UGH!

The Famous Texas Bull-Nettle!  Although I didn't see this one, I was fortunate enough to have read recently that if you rub sand in the direction of the hair, it will stop the itching and it WORKED! 

Cnidoscolus texanus

The Milkweed - although a  common plant was something that attracted me early this Spring.  We are so far behind with flowers this year because of lack of rain.  It's fun to see the different stages and also it's a favourite for the Monarch butterfly to feed on.  I have recently read that you can eat much of the plant, seeing recipes online for sauteed pods, although you might google before doing so.  I was told they were poisonous and cattle never touch them, but the recipes say once you cook them, it releases the bitterness of the pod.

Easter 2011

Robert's large food plot for deer.  He was able to plant peas and beans and it's doing quite well with the small amount of rain we've gotten this past month.  If you look carefully you'll see a turkey hen.

Robert has a second food plot for birds/dove.  It's in a different open area and again, it's growing nicely and he was able to rent a tractor to dig a start to a small stock tank.  We see lots of tracks around the tank, so happy that we are able to provide the deer and birds a place to drink close to the plots.

Another exciting time on the land - we were out checking on the food plots and we hear the children screaming.  Jack spotted a rattlesnake and the brave and smart brother put Audrey in the car and then notified us.  This is our second rattlesnake and although we ate the last one we caught, for the experience .....we decided after we saw a large RAT come out of it's belly to pass on snake that night.   

For those of you that remember Little Brown Betty - she's still with her boyfriends next door. We check on her regularly and hope to get further along on the house to then work on fixing things up for livestock.  She's very happy and growing - the bulls are very protective and I'm not entirely sure what they'll do when she's gone.  I expect later this year we'll get her back pregnant...smile.

Jack's bird shadow

The house is slowly coming along.  We've started painting the outside, 'ELK HORN' - I thought it was appropriate...it will have white trim, giving it a very fresh/crisp look.  I'm looking forward to seeing it finished with the 8ft porch on three sides, but all good things come to those that wait.  

Jack & Audrey May 2011

Thank you everyone for following our story.  I spent time today writing this entry, because it reminds me why we are doing this and looking back on this past month, it's had some ups and downs.  We had some scary moments with Wild Fires at Possum Kingdom, 20 miles away.  So much ranch land burned up and families that lost homes and a life lost.  We sometimes get caught up in things we cannot change and miss out on the amazing little things all around us. 

Water

Proverbs 25:25.
Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.


As we continue our journey, we are amazed at what we've accomplished, not just physically, but in so many other ways.  I had intended to write an entry over a month ago documenting our exciting moment of digging our water well.  Robert had budgeted carefully (and worked overtime) for the much desired water well to be dug at the beginning of March.  We were both so excited, giddy almost.  As some of you might be aware or not, we've been living off of a little 100 gallon water tank that we have to pump to the trailer for running water.  We originally use to bring the tank to Weatherford to the other house to get water from our own well, which I used very sparingly.  We fortunately found out there is a water filling station in town, which made things a little easier.  We have a much greater appreciation for water and how easily we can waste it without much thought.  My big trips back to Weatherford are to do laundry only and take long showers....smile.  I often think, I hope I never complain about having to do laundry when I get my front loaders here to the little house, because it's been about 8 months of lugging it 60 miles and I'm also very thankful that I have my own machines.  This experience continues to make me appreciate many things we often take for granted and how many people around the world still see running water in their home as a luxury and although we have chosen this journey, it has made me appreciate the blessing of water.

I remember this day, the feelings of anticipation and excitement.  Robert took the morning off to see the well diggers and their equipment at work.  He ended up having to leave before we got the 'thumbs up' of how much water it was going to produce.  He called me from work and said he had heard from the company that they'd gone 200 feet and we were only getting a trickle of water.  Their intensions were to go 160, so they dug really deep and it made us sick to our stomach. According to the well supervisor, this happens  about once in four years to them; and we were the one.  I have a lot of photos of the equipment, which was impressive and HUGE, but I won't post them.

Our water well diggers - two great guys.  The senior one who's been doing this all his life said, he felt like crying, too when I told him my husband felt like crying.

Audrey and I came back from school pick up and she was all dressed up and even though I felt like crying, she saw the mess of the well digging and just thought the clay river looked like fun.  I thought why not let her just have fun.  It really puts things in perspective, although we were greatly disappointed about not having success with the first digging of a water well here, we have so much more to be thankful for.

When I think of our water well experience, I see it as one of our biggest disappointments so far and I marvel at how quickly we were able to get back up on our feet, dust ourselves off and SPRING forward.  BTW, this was created out of the dried pieces of the clay river.

Jack & Audrey Spring 2011

Nothing says spring has arrived like a trip to TSC to look at their stock of chicks.  We saw ducklings and fell in love!  We have four of the cutest ducklings which are now three-four times the size they were when we got them.  They grow extraordinarily fast.  We also have six baby chicks for future egg supply.  We've not had duck eggs, but have heard great things about them, apparently they are a little richer than chicken eggs and also great for baking!

We spent our Spring Break hanging out around the land.  The children and I went on a lot of great hikes in the woods and ended up at the big pond.  This has been an exceptionally dry year and the pond is down about five feet.

As cold as it was one day, it then got into the 90's the day before Spring officially started and Audrey had to jump in and convinced Jack to join her......crazy children!  I think she gets it from her dad - see photos below....smile.

We had the tent up for Spring break week for the children to enjoy.  It was super windy one day and I saw Robert outside taking the tent down and then I saw this.........

What was Sally Fields' trick in The Flying Nun? It doesn't work so well with a 190 lb man. (Robert's written contribution to this blog entry)

 Driven Well -  Robert is now trying to dig his own well, which he had researched when we first bought the land.  His desire for self sufficiency requires that we eventually have a well.  If he's not successful with this method, we'll probably end up having another company come out in the future to dig a well. Because although we're thankful that we can tap into the Co-op local water, we'd love to have our own well, too.

The long metal pole is a well point - the Driven Well method is you dig a hole about 4 ft diameter 3 ft deep and you drive the well point down the center. As you drive deeper, you add 5 ft sections of pipe and you continue to drive it down until you reach water.  This method is used by our military and the Peace Corps to provide water in undeveloped areas. We intend to use this water to supplement our
Co-Op water by routing it to our vegetable gardens and any livestock that we will have.

 We had our water meter installed at the end of our drive last week!  This is exciting because we now get to pipe over 1/2 mile or 1000 yards to the house.  We hope to have this done by the end of the month, but just knowing we have the meter and water on the property, we're content.

I will end on a photo of Robert and me in the jeep last night coming back from a drive up to High Point and seeing the sun set and all the trees starting to leave out - it was a perfect Spring night.

The Long Winter

The first book in the Laura Ingalls Wilder's series is, Little House in the Big Woods.  We started reading this book at the beginning of the year.  Audrey has fallen in love with this series and enjoys reading some of the pages herself.

We've listened to The Long Winter on cd, which is the sixth book in the series.  If you've ever felt like you've struggled with winter weather, you need to read this book and appreciate how hard winters can really be.  We've had some interesting experiences recently with winter weather.  Although in this part of Texas, usually we don't see a lot of snow or cold spells, we've had a few rough weeks.  Our trialer has had the water supply freeze up a few times, we've had some rolling electrical black outs and we've had to leave the trailer to head back to our big house in Weatherford, during the week we had four consecutive snow/ice/wild chill school cancelation days.

Seeing our Little House in the snow was quite a delight.  The wind chill of below zero really took one's breath away.  I know those from ND, MN, WI and Nova Scotia might think that this Prairie girl has gone all soft and you'd be right!

Our old kitchen table will work just right in this little farm house.

Who needs a real kitchen when you can have such a cute play one.

Over fifty yards of trenching by my husband and electrical wire and tubing to the house.  We hope to soon have electricity!

Our fuse box

                      

We have stairs!

Insulation upstairs makes all the difference!

Here's a few extra photos from the past month...

We ended up back at the house in Weatherford for four days.  Looking at this photo recently it occurred to me that our new house is basically our garage and the upstairs.  We hope to list this house for sale in the spring, so anyone that might know someone that is interested....smile.

We got out our FARM-OPOLY in Weatherford and had some good family fun!

Audrey at the Young County Stock Show in Graham, Texas.  

two cute sheep

three billy goats

We have thousands of trees on our 72 acres.  Here's one of my favourites...it's a huge Cedar Elm at the front of our property, so on the pastural area, not in the back woods.

ending with a cool photo of a rock entwined by the tree roots.