Few people get the chance to live out their dreams. More people have dreams that are never followed. I was one of the latter until a few years ago. After a long, failed marriage, I met my present wife, who was also in the same situation. But there was a small problem. I lived in England and she lived in the USA. So, taking the bull by the horns, I went through the immigration process, sold, gave away or just dumped everything I owned and moved to NW Arkansas.
That was four years ago, and in the meantime I had got a job at the school where my wife taught, as the school tech geek. The problem with that was, we lived in NW Arkansas and the school was in SW Missouri. The 35 minute drive each way soon became a chore neither of us needed, but we didn’t want to leave the school, so we started looking for a house closer to the school.
This is where our dreams come in. Both of us had a yearning to have a little bit of land as well as a home. I love to hunt, with rifle, bow and camera. My wife always wanted a garden where she could grow vegetables, and fruit. I also wanted to raise some animals to supply us with meat (my hunting skills would not keep us fed).
After looking at several properties, we found one we both liked, and after the usual haggling, we agreed on a price. The house is about fifty years old with lots of character. The previous owners had built a beautiful, manicured front yard and several of our new neighbors mentioned how they spent a lot of time keeping it that way. We think this was their way of giving us a friendly warning about us keeping it that way too.
At the rear, and to the sides of the property was pasture, which the immediate neighbors had been keeping down with their cattle. There was an old pole barn, a storm shelter, which the kids had named the Hobbit House, a garage and a tool shed. To the east of the house was also a small pond.
So here are my long term plans. I am going to start some top bar beehives and place them right at the back of the property. This way they will hopefully have enough food sources not to bother us or the neighbors.
Next will be the chickens. A small flock of layers to keep us in eggs, supplemented each season with a dozen broilers for the table.
When both of these are running well, the main pasture will be utilized, and for this I want to raise some Boer goats. Have you figured out yet that I like my meat?
Meanwhile, the small patch of pasture between the pond and the house will be turned into an orchard for apples, pears and also raspberry and blackberry bushes.
My wife’s vegetable garden will be on the other side of the house.
So there you have it. Hopefully you will join us on our journey and see how we fare. You now have our plan for world domination and you can come back to it later down the road and see if we kept to it. Either way, I hope you enjoy the ramblings, photos and videos we produce doing it all.
I have few vices. My wife sees to that. But one I have got is I like to sit on the front porch and smoke my pipe, or read a book. I was sitting out there the other morning and a SUV went down the road. It then went around the bend and turned around. It drove back up the road and pulled into the neighbor’s driveway across the road. Then it reversed out a few feet and drove back in a few feet, I could not figure out what the two guys in the vehicle were up to. Then I saw it under the front of their truck. A black snake. It kind of annoyed me that they had taken the trouble to come back and try and kill it just because it was a snake. It then shot off along the grass verge and then slipped into the storm gulley.
The two guys then saw me sitting there and called up to me ‘That was a big one!’ I gave them a sickly grin and called back ‘He’s our rodent killer.’ They then shot off down the road and that was the end of it. Until that evening, I was sat out there once more and suddenly I saw Blackie sauntering back across the road towards our gulley. I then heard a couple of vehicles coming up the road. The first car managed to miss him, but the second one went out of their way to try and hit him. I cursed, as he seem to ball up and roll a foot or two. I was expecting him to remain there, but in a flash, he straightened out and shot across the remaining black top and into our ditch. I called the kids and we took off down the drive to see if he was okay. Sure enough, he was laid there in the gulley with his head up looking at us. I had asked one of the kids to get the camera, and I managed to take a few shots before we left him to recover from his ordeal. Not before having to grab Sophie and stop her from climbing down to take a close look. Sophie is our snake girl. What I mean by that is, if you are walking in the country, and Sophie is with you, you will see a snake. But she also seems to have very little fear of snakes too.
A few nights later, after dark. You’ve guessed it, I was out on the front porch with my pipe and I noticed something lying in the grass just a few feet from me. I slipped inside to get the torch and shone it on the object. It was Blackie! I called Lea Ann to come see and she came to the screen door, wanting to keep something solid in between her and whatever I wanted her to see. We watched him slither around for a while, and Lea Ann actually came outside with the camera to try and take some shots of Blackie. I slipped outside several times throughout the evening and he was always there somewhere, hunting down the lizards and crickets that inhabit our front yard. It was nice to see he was none the worse for his traffic adventure earlier in the week. Also, it was good to know we had a resident vermin control specialist about the place. As long as he stays out of my chicken coop when I build it, then I think Blackie and me are going to get along okay.
