Do you lock your doors at home? What about your car? Do you secure it every time you get out of it? Boy, I’ve been doing that for years. What about you? Well, I recently was smacked in the face with another country-living realization. We went out of town for several days and a friend agreed to feed the dogs while we were gone. My husband also requested she move…
Aaaah, nuts! Let's see: that could be an exclamation of disgust akin to "Rats!" or "Darn!" or it could be lovingly moaned upon receiving a gift of the same. Which one is it, you ask? Well, at this point in the year I'm not sure which way I mean it! Even though this is the second fall for us out here on our 2 acre "homestead", it was the first…
In all of the adaptations we’ve had to make here in our country home, the most subtle one has affected our dogs. It’s subtle because its full import has taken this entire year to become obvious. We have three dogs-city dogs, of course. The most citified is the little one, a six-pound toy with long hair. When we gained her from my son in late 1999, she wasn’t fond of…
Yep, here’s one more fire story: my personal saga with fire. Sunday, July 16, 11:30 pm: we smelled smoke outside as we are getting ready for bed and then saw a haze of smoke around the house. I promptly called 911 and hopped into the car. We determined the smoke was centered around our house only. Another call to 911 gained the news that there had been a fire in…
The past 18 months have been a time for learning for me between my work with the newspaper, the planning commission, no full time job and living in the country. All of a sudden I've had enough revelations about living and life to write many columns! First, I have to return to my recurrent theme-living in the country. Spring has sprung and the birds and bees (and all sorts of…
One unanticipated benefit of living in the country is a feeling of permanent summer vacation. This I just realized today as I was picking the wild blackberries that line one side of our property. As a youngster, I did spend time in country with relatives that owned farms years ago. I can even recall picking cotton at my great grandmother’s though I don’t really remember her. I can’t even remember…
Everyone talks about the peace and quiet of the country. All of our visitors have commented on the serenity of our "estate"; both my husband and I fell in love with this place simply because of the quiet. How quiet is it? Well, quiet enough to discover a few new things about our world. It’s so quiet that I am able to hear all that air traffic.--all that air traffic…