Oh Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo (gnats) Roam!

I'm back...
Ah, it felt good to get away from it all for a week. Yeah, I know all you wage slaves are thinking: what do two retired people have to get away for? Hmmmmm....I'll get back to you on that one.

Anyway, spent 8 days roaming the Natchez Trace (almost all but about 10 miles of it). Stopped in Memphis to get good and greasy with BBQ.

Sampler Plate at Interstate BBQ.

And loaded up on Rock and Soul at, where else? The Museum of Rock and Soul. Highly recommended. Had a hard time pulling Tom away from the jukeboxes. Stopped at Vicksburg (we are such Civil War sluts). Never did get to try those Delta Tamales- oh well guess we'll have to make a trip to New Orleans now.
We ended up in Nashville to see our friends and fabulous hosts, Norbert and Joanie. For Tom's sisters: he is still the same crazy Norbert, but with less hair. The same could be said of Tom.

Tom with Norb (BFF) and Joanie.

Meanwhile, the house progressed while we were gone. The plumbing is roughed in, so is most of the electrical. The furnace is in (pieces) downstairs and the front porch got concreted. Poor Tom. He so wants to write his name for posterity.

Garage door in, garage is huge!

Living room needs an interior decorator.

Hey Kate, you can have this bedroom or the one next to it.

View into pantry, powder room beyond and study.

Hell of a porch, Tommy.

View out the front door.

We asked one of our "neighbors" to disc and plow up the front for the farm. We got to have that truck soon! I see all these leaves and horse poop we need and I am NOT putting them in the back of the HHR!

We'll see what this week brings. Hopefully drywall.

Holy Crap!

When Joe, the builder, called last night and listed off everything that was done, I sort of had to have the ground truth. So sure enough when we drove up today we saw this:

Looks more like a domicile.

The roof was on and shingled, it was wrapped, there are windows and doors, the stairs are in, the plumbers and electricians were out and about and Hank Hill, the propane guy came to discuss propane, the clean fuel of choice (actually his name was Chuck).

Whoa!

So were were given our homework assignments: get the fans over here before we leave on vacation (Friday). Yikes. So we bought a big, honking whole house fan that will probably suck in every bug and insect through the screens, including the bane of my existence: buffalo gnats.

View from back, facing "crick".

The lower level, or basement, whatever...will have close to 9 foot ceilings now. So it won't seem like a dungeon, kids, should you come to stay and stay and stay....

The one bad thing is that we will NOT be in by Thanksgiving, most likely it will be early December. Look for an Owen Open House sometime that month. We expect all of you to show up.

Tom taking a shower.

We did lose an alcove in the pantry due to the basement stairs, so I don't know where we will put all 200 of our cookbooks. It's amazing how many course corrections Joe has had to make from the plans. We just trust him. It's a small house, so when you come don't be surprised. The not so big house. I shall not want what I haven't got and all that. Anyway, it will be a cozy 1800 square feet.

We are trying to find a farmer to disc up our future garden, but no luck so far. We did go on a tour of a large organic farm outside of Edwardsville: Biver Farms. It was really cool.

High hoop houses with tomatoes.

Our neighbor, Adam, works part time for them while going to SIU-E. So we got an insiders tour. We met the original land owner and organic farmer: he was a hoot!

It's Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm all over again folks. They also had bees, chickens and horses.

That's all for now. We are going on the Natchez Trace and then visiting friends in Nashville. So I'll be ya'alling as much as Paula Deen. Next post probably won't be until Nov. 1st or so. By then the drywall will be in and then they start the flooring.

Little House on the Prairie

Paw! Paw, come quick! The Little House on the Prairie is a-growin'. Jumping Jiminy so it is!

We gots walls.

The driveway is, well, almost normal.

Tom was happy about this as the wood burning pizza oven, smoker and grill are all going over here.

And then there were walls.

Two days later the first floor was getting framed.

Front door. And yes I am wearing my Dharma shirt.

Tom contemplating the dining area.

So it looks like next year we will have one of our big, famous Thanksgiving dinners. There is no way we will be in before then. I am hoping for a couple weeks before Christmas (although I don't know why that is important to me). We are already complaining about how we will have to scale back what we cook in the apartment: maybe a small bird with a teaspoon of stuffing, only one pie (damn!) and a couple of sides. This is killing us, folks!

Back acres: Mowed!

So after we messed around on the house site, Tim and Ryan chased us away. They were using nail guns and we were in the line of fire. We went off to see what our neighbor, Dave, did in the back. The 6 feet tall weeds are gone. He has planted pasture grass on his land but we will just let nature take it's course on ours. Besides, someday I will have my very own baby tractor. I am lusting after a nice John Deere.

Neighbor Dave and Tom.

They just have a small shed on their property. We took Dave over to see our house and he started talking about maybe putting in a double-wide. Tom and I both sucked our collective breaths in. We had placed a covenant on the other lots when we bought ours: no mobile homes. So we'll see what happens. Right now they are only talking about a horse, cow and maybe a pig (or prosciutto, as Tom calls them). All will produce nice poop for the farm.

I promised a photo of our other neighbors:

Ottterville Twp. Cemetery.

See? It's small and quiet and will not be putting a double-wide on itself anytime soon.

That's all she wrote, most of the lighting, plumbing, cabinets, counters, doors, windows and flooring have been picked out. Next week the roof goes on and the weather has been with us so far.

Far From the Madding Crowd

When your neighbors are dead people, you have to wonder. We make jokes about how they are quiet and don't have wild parties. Most of you do know that there is a 1/2 acre cemetery on the north east corner of our land? Somehow it doesn't bother us. I donno, the place seems almost happy: whirl-li-gigs on some of the graves, fresh plastic flowers. What's not to like?
Last week saw some progress: walls went up and the driveway from hell (and then purgatory) became less so.

Basement got framed first.

The "family room" is on the left and two bedrooms are on the right. They will be for visitors, kids who can't get jobs, guests who drink too much....believe me you do not want to drive at night on Otterville Rd. It seems like every time I open up the newspaper, someone has gotten into an accident. Lots of motorcyclists use the local roads in the fall. Tom will have to be careful when he opens his baguette and Calvados stand.

Tom and Joe (the builder) checking out stud work.

Most of the wood for framing is fir. Joe said pine is very hard to come by. Wonder if the pine borers have done damage to the forests?

Outstanding in her field.

We took a look at our weed crop in the upper acreage. Yikes! They are taller than me. Asked our neighbor if he could cut them down with his tractor.

We are going to check things out tomorrow. Let's hope they have started framing the first floor. We are getting tired of this teensy tiny apartment. It's been made worse by the fact that whenever a piece of furniture that we will need at the new place goes on sale, we have been buying it.

Coyote food.

This is why we keep telling well meaning family and friends that we must have BIG dogs. We have seen at least two kills on our land (one a small dog with tags) and a bobcat recently crossed in front of our car on Otterville Rd. Plus the buffalo gnats will probably kill small dogs too.

So visit us at your own risk.....bwah hah hah! (Supposed to be an evil laugh)

Get Us Out of Here!

Let's see, this week the faucet in the apartment bathtub would not shut off. When we called the landlord on Friday they said it would be Monday before they could get to it. So we listened to the steady, soothing sound of running water. I'D RATHER BE WATERBOARDED!
However, good news ....Joe the builder said tomorrow they start framing.
Also, somewhat better news: the driveway from hell is less from hell than from purgatory.

Nothing like a little backfill to improve things.

Plus they put concrete in.

That's the walkout looking east from the creek.

Er, I mean crick. Gotta talk country. Those two concrete wings hold back the dirt. Guess we will be planting lots and lots of ground cover as I sure the hell ain't cutting any more hillsides.

We haven't checked on the back acres yet. But here is the path over the crick:

Pretty, huh? Yeah just wait until it is buffalo gnat season (blessedly very brief in the spring). They are nasty little flies. Read all about them:

http://www.ento.okstate.edu/ddd/insects/blackflies.htm

I suppose we could poison the creek but we are sworn to going organic, so no nuclear weapons allowed. The odd thing about buffalo gnats is that the Clean Water Act actually caused their increase, as polluted streams killed the eggs. Also the only thing that keeps them away is vanilla. So Tom and I will smell like cookies for about 3 weeks. Ah the country life.

Just imagine the house where the dirt is.

Someday it will be pretty sweet.

Before I sign off we just had to show this off. You know what foodies we are. While in Chicago we bought poppy seed buns, electric green relish and sports peppers just so we could do this:

Pretty damn authentic looking, I'd say.

Namaste!