Christmas Day 2013

Our sister, Barbara, and her husband, Jim, were visiting from Virginia over the holidays and wanted to see the farm.  They seemed to like the visit.  We think it is hard to over-sell the "place."
Here is the status of the house on Christmas.  You will note that we have windows and doors (in the garage).

Security...

Trouble at the farm reported regarding our first line of security, so I made a quick trip to harden that defense.  We are in a tough situation.  On the one hand, we need to secure the job site and all of the materials and tools.  On the other, those who are doing the work need access.  As we progress, the balancing of these two factors will only become more challenging.

Took a quick picture just because I could...

A Fantastic Day At The Farm!

Today reminded us why we live in Texas.  The weather was perfect!  The secret is we have to endure 3 months of nonstop summer to get to the 9 months of varying degrees of perfection!

We fell into our routines and the dogs spent their day, sniffing and routing around discovering how the farm's wild creatures were dealing with the season including those who had been a meal for others.

 I was pulling bones, etc. out of the various mouths all day.

We went by the farm and ranch store early, and with some assistance, bought the right kind of wire cutters so we could work on removing some of the random barbwire we have on the farm.

 

We headed toward the tank and the ducks took wing.  Peg yelled, "Get a picture of the ducks!"

 

I have about five more pictures of the flying ducks, but thought three of my best pictures was plenty!

 

LOOK AT OUR HOUSE!!!!!  WOWIE!

  

The framers are still working, but are almost done.  We were able to walk through the rooms and go upstairs. We had a real sense of what's what. It hit us hard today that we're building a home and will be putting down our roots here. 

 

 

This is our view from the back porch.  I can visualize sitting here with my coffee and soaking up this scene (without all the construction materials). 



Moving Down The Long Road

 

As we drove toward the front gate, past the front pasture, this was the scene that greeted us.  It was foggy, winds at 15 mph, and 36 degrees, but the framers were working and we could see the skeleton of our new home!





We drove up the drive and snapped a few more pictures.  It was very cold so we didn't linger long.

Wow, how cool is this!

CORRECTION (from 11-30-13):  My rant about the very young
inexperienced truck driver was unfounded.  From pictures taken by
one of the Game Cams, apparently a very old, slow to react driver
made the wood delivery.

Cattle guard?

When at the farm Friday checked out the game camera by the cattle guard.  Yikes this black cow managed to "jump" over.  This MAY BE the missing black cow from TJ's pasture.  Whatever, this cow seems to be rather opportunistic and desirous of eating the new winter wheat shoots coming up around the house.  (Dates on game cam incorrect.)

The Framing Has Begun

The framing has begun!  When we arrived early Saturday afternoon after Thanksgiving, there was no one working, which was disappointing but understandable given the holiday weekend.  It allowed us to explore what had been completed without bothering anyone.  We also heard there was some problem with the wood order, too many 2 X 6s and not enough 2 X 4s. 
Looking around the farm we could see that more rain came in last week.  We heard the trucks bringing in the wood got stuck and had some other difficulties.  Personally, I believe they sent their youngest most inexperienced delivery truck drivers to deliver everything and they had one problem after another probably because they were going too fast.  Peg and I are telling ourselves that there will be more such "peccadillos" and we need to just "breath through it".  Rome wasn't built in a day and whatever problems the Romans had with their building projects no one really cares: the world is enjoying the end products today.

No Where To Hide

We always try to head to the farm on Saturdays.  Due the weather, we decided to stay at home where there are walls, a roof, and central heat.  The weather is suppose to be in the 30s with wind gusts of 25 miles per hour.  Throw in intermittent rain showers and it was a "no brainer" to stay home.  We will go after Thanksgiving when temperatures and conditions improve.

Progress And Continuing Down The Long Road

We learned this week that we have a new framer.  It has been stressful dealing with this uncertainty for the last month.  Now we can sleep better and confidently look forward again.  With the framing beginning in the next 1 - 2 weeks, we installed some more security measures in anticipation of having a lot of valuable materials and equipment at the job site.  I will not elaborate as I don't want the criminals to be alerted...  I will say that Rooster and Beulah are an important part of these measures.

 

Beulah, aka The Nose, is taking her new security job seriously.  Vigilant, yet so cool!







 

Rooster quietly observant (for a change), is waiting for an opportunity to spring into action to save the kingdom!

We are so lucky to have them both on our side!

When we put the new fence in surrounding the building site, we moved all of our storage stuff from  the live oak grove to under one of the post oak trees that border the road.  It will be fine as a temporary location until the house is built.  We want to be closer to "the action."

Hopeful Was Too Optimistic!

I was hopeful that the low numbers of squirrels at the farm would be beneficial when planting our acorns.  Wrong!  Peg checked one area where we planted and every acorn had been dug up.  She said she even saw and heard two squirrels mocking and thumbing their noses while she was checking.  So I checked along the new fence line where we planted the other acorns.  It looked like they got most, if not all of those acorns.  So low numbers apparently does not mean inefficiency! 
See Plan B below:

Notice the cage... Here in the suburbs, the squirrels run in packs.  This is not how I planned to re-tree the farm but will try this approach.  The dogs were not sorry to see the kennel used for something different from its intended purpose.

We spent a lot of time this weekend working cleaning up more mesquite.  The weather was nice so it was great to be outside enjoying nature.

The brush piles are getting bigger...

With all the rain we've had, the wheat has sprouted.  If we continue to get the rain, there should be a bumper crop come spring.

Rooster spent a good portion of his day trotting toward the tank, then being called back to stay with us as we worked.  Finally we headed for a walk to the tank and he ran ahead to romp and play.

We continue to be amazed by the amount of water in the tank.  I hate to always mention that fact, but fortunes are made and lost based on the amount of water available.

We also want the fish to be healthy for fishing trips with the grandkids.

Hopeful plantings...

Due to rising costs, I decided to try my hand at a crop.  My crop is trees.  After the drought from a couple of years ago, we have lost and continue to loose trees.  An arborist said Texas will loose a very high percentage of trees (70%+/-) over the next several years as a result of that drought.  Planting whole trees is too expensive so have decided to plant acorns.  I am planting oaks: Burr Oak, Red Oak, and Shumard Oak.  I have been collecting acorns the last week or so and have "classified" them as follows:

Admittedly the "classification" is not scientific other than to say those acorns identified as small, medium, and large have leaves that are turning a bright red right now.  So maybe an unofficial ID of Red Oak might be best.
Peg and I planted close to a hundred and are hoping we get a 5-10% success rate.  Both of us dreamed out loud that it would be cool if in 20-25 years we are walking around the farm and see all the red leaves of those trees!
One of the reasons I decided to get with the planting is central Texas has gotten a lot of rain in the last week or so.  Maybe 10 inches or more.  The ground is wet and there is more rain forecast for next week. 
Pictured below is another tank on the farm which usually has only about a foot of water in it's small "bowl".  You can see that the water has spread out into the trees and pasture.

Our pond/tank is as full as we've ever seen it also.

When we headed out to go to Salado by the "quicker" back road, we encountered the low water crossing filled with water.

We have never seen water over this roadway.  Maybe it shows that we are going into wetter weather  conditions which may help our acorns.

Oct 20th weekend

See below an amazing photo of two fawns playing in parallel at the feeder.

See the fawns prior to their display.

Off on the left of the picture we installed a dog and people gate as the dogs would not cross over the cattle guard.

We do get an occasional buck at the feeder.

We have recently gotten a good bit of rain in our pond which you can now see from the hill close to where we are building.  The field is plowed now & ready to plant winter wheat.