Life in MO

So life in southwest MO is a little different than in the big metropolis of Charlotte, NC.  Cherilyn has a house on 9 acres that includes a small orchard (apple, apricot, cherry, peach and pear trees, raspberry, blueberry and blackberry bushes and a grape vine), a large garden, 11 horses (miniatures), 2 cats and ........ 30 dogs. :)  Cherilyn's business is http://impressivepom.com/

All this means there is a great deal of work to be done.  Two weeks ago I hauled 3000lbs of gravel to the house in the truck and then placed it all where it needed to go by hand! One shovel full at a time! Last week I moved an 800lb hay round bail into the barn. NOT an easy thing to do by the way, and it was not like the bail was really close to where it was needed. LOL  Today, we went and picked up 2 cords of wood. We loaded up the truck and the horse trailer. (I have not unloaded yet) The wood is for the wood furnace (http://www.hardyheater.com/Products/products.html) The furnace has to be filled with wood twice a day, which is not bad at night, it's the morning fill that is usually not so fun because, well, it's first thing in the morning! LOL and that is when it is at it's coldest! The upside to all this work is that the heat is really nice and it also heats the water in the house so you can pretty much take an endless hot shower when you come in from the cold. :)  Other things on the daily to do list would be the caring for the horses each morning. Lately that has meant dealing with their water situation.  When it freezes, you have to break it up. We do have heaters for the water containers but the past several days we have been having issues with them, we finally have 3 of the 4 we need working. The 3 horses that do not have access to the barn need hay brought out to them each day.

I have also had fun repairing fence line. The barbed wire fence on the back side had to be fixed the other day because one of the horses got through and had some fun on the neighbors field.  I have also reset some of the electrical fence and next week will run the new wire to power it up.


Here are some pics  -

The Orchard on Thanksgiving morning after a small ice storm

Carissa playing in the gravel before I shoveled it out

 

about a cord and a half of wood in the horse trailer - the rest was in the back of the truck

Looking across the garden out to the back of the property

12/14/10

early September

early September

 

Sunset 12/14/10