vituperation

Robyn and I spent the morning at the new house, making long lists of things we want to do to it. Over the next weeks as we get ready to close, we’ll be prioritizing our lists so we can hit the ground running as soon as we own the property. This trip, we brought the BDUs and hiking boots, and covered the entire property.

It’s markedly different from our postage-stamp suburb yard.

Here’s the front yard of our current house. The WHOLE front yard.

Here’s PART of the new front yard.
That property marker is about 10 feet from the other house there.
For reference, see that big pin oak tree? Every leaf is on our side of the property line.

Here’s a picture taken from the very back of our current property.

This picture was taken about 20 feet from the back of the new property.
I labelled the house so you could see it. The shed, while currently on what will be our
property, belongs to the current owner’s dad. He’s offered to sell it, but I don’t know if
we’ll be buying. I’m not sure what we’d use it for.

This is one of two crappy Bradford Pear trees we have now.
They’re about 25 feet tall, and so far we’ve been lucky that neither has broken.

This is a typical tree from the new house. It’s a closeup of the pin oak
from above. Note the swing, waiting for me to play on. The owner’s dad reckons
this tree is about 150 years old, based on its size.

More of the same tree. Sorry, but it won’t all fit into the picture.
We’ll need to get the parts over the house trimmed back when we take ownership.

More typical trees. There’s a huge magnolia in the front, another pin oak to the right,
and I think the leftmost is a regular oak tree.
Those, my friends, are some motherfucking TREES.

Still more trees, along the property line separating our place from the church next door.

Here’s one of the back corner property line markers.

And this is what it looks like from that property marker.
You can see the house near the middle of the picture.
Note, as always, the size of the trees. I suspect my obsession with the trees comes from
my love of the woods. Or something like that.

Looking at the house from behind the (owner’s father’s) garden, which is
on what will be our property.

This is just one of the several pecan trees the property has.

Another view of the house from just beyond the pond.
Note how Robyn is like one of the cats, in that she keeps showing up in pictures.
That’s an already-built chicken coop behind her, waiting for some good layers.

The pond, which is far too small and far too shallow. You can see just what the current dry summer
has done to it. Those are dead catfish floating there (yes, it smells). Note how small they are.
You need a big deep pond for nice-sized eatin’ fish, like the ones I caught back in May.
We’re debating whether to make this pond bigger, or fill it in and dig a big one further from the house.

Inside the chicken coop, which the current owners have kindly left filled with fertilizer for the garden.

This is what we’ll see when we sit on the porch in the afternoon, iced tea in hand.
The house faces south, which makes it perfect for afternoon porch-sittin’ after a hard day on the tractor.

It’s a nice big porch, extending the width of the house.

This is a view across the back pasture, looking from one side to the other.

Finally, remember that mouse skeleton I mentioned yesterday, from the crawlspace?
Here ’tis.

It’s going to be a lot tougher than the suburbs, but all that space will be worth it, I think.

I hope.

I pray.

Last Saturday (the day we found the house) and today, I stopped at the little convenience store up on the corner for a drink. Both times, the same three old men were sitting up front and shooting the shit, talking this and that about the weather, the cotton, and whatnot. In the store, you can purchase all manner of locally grown produce. Other than the occasional apple or banana at the front counter, I’ve never in my life seen bins of produce in a convenience store.

Small towns are awfully nifty.