Dear readers,
I have been writing this blog for a while now. I didn't tell any of the family or friends. I just wanted to test drive for a while and see if anyone was interested. Well......I got found out! I'm officially out of the closet! And it's a funny story if you read my daughter-in-law's blog http://www.mrs-adventure.com/2011/04/i-found-her-and-shes-coming-out-of.html#comments. She's so funny and such a good writer...maybe I was a little intimidated. Even my husband didn't know, so I had to confess to him too. Ironically though, he had made off handed comments over the last couple of months, that I write a blog. Little did he know! And it wasn't that I was trying to be secretive about the whole thing. Haven't you ever tried something and not told anyone....maybe started a diet or started exercising with out telling anyone? Maybe we don't do that so we won't be held accountable. Maybe we think that if no one knows and we fail, then it's only us that knows about it? Anyway, I'm out and here I am! Thanks Rachael and Aaron, you've helped me with my little secret and it couldn't have turned out better!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
One Kings Lane
Have you visited One Kings Lane yet? I've signed up and get emails from them. They have sales from many different vendors. Some may interest you and some may not. I've ordered a couple of times from them and have been very pleased. I needed a new scale for the kitchen and ended up with a nice digital one for about $12. Check it out!
https://www.onekingslane.com/invite/ChristiWest
https://www.onekingslane.com/invite/ChristiWest
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
What am I doing?
As I sit here tonight, I am wondering what in the world am I doing? We just finished spring break and
started back to class today. We had a boat load of stuff due....projects and they weren't little ones either. I
mean one of the projects took about 25 hours worth of work to complete. And then to top it off, we had a
bugger of a test in our last class of the day. Whew........and now time's a tickin....and the end of the
semester will be here soon. That's a good thing and a bad thing....that means finals and then.....summer
classes start June 1st til July 1st....yuck! But, looking on the bright side....next fall....I'll be a senior!!
Wahoo! And in the spring semester.....we're interns or student teachers!! I will have to say though, the
program I am in does seem to prepare you very well for the classroom. I'm anxious to put all of this
knowledge into practice in my own classroom.
started back to class today. We had a boat load of stuff due....projects and they weren't little ones either. I
mean one of the projects took about 25 hours worth of work to complete. And then to top it off, we had a
bugger of a test in our last class of the day. Whew........and now time's a tickin....and the end of the
semester will be here soon. That's a good thing and a bad thing....that means finals and then.....summer
classes start June 1st til July 1st....yuck! But, looking on the bright side....next fall....I'll be a senior!!
Wahoo! And in the spring semester.....we're interns or student teachers!! I will have to say though, the
program I am in does seem to prepare you very well for the classroom. I'm anxious to put all of this
knowledge into practice in my own classroom.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Building Fence
Well.....it's been a while since I posted, but I've been out and about! I and three other students were chosen to go to Atlanta this last weekend and present to the FEA conference! What a treat to go south for a visit. I've been to Atlanta before and enjoyed the visit. The other friends I was with hadn't been there before, so it was fun showing them the little bit that I knew about it. I wish though that we had more time...there are so many things I would like to see and do and we just didn't have the time.
But now with that aside...I want to tell you all about building the fence at the farm. When we purchased it, there were just some scraggly remains of an old fence. So, we knew we needed to get it done...you can't keep your cows in if you don't! After measuring the perimeter, we figured it was roughly about 2 miles of fence. We started purchasing posts and barbed along until we felt that we had enough. If you purchase a pallet of posts you'll sometimes get a little discount. We purchased about 1000 posts which gave a little leverage when it came to pricing. If you will call around for prices, sometimes stores will match prices. You've got to do what you can to save money in these times. We watched for specials and did a lot of price checking.
Last spring we hired a man to weld the corners and the entrance gates. Your fence is only as good as your corners and we want this to last.
We hired a local man to do the welding and purchased the pipe in bulk from a company that specializes in pipe. The welder told us what we needed and I ordered it. The problem we encountered though was that the pipe was longer than anything we had to haul it. Fortunately, the welder had a long enough trailer and he hauled it to the farm for us.
After he was finished, we were ready to start pounding posts into the ground. It was July and we were ready to get started. We knew we could do this!
We stretched our string from welded post to welded post, laid out our posts at 10 foot intervals and began pounding post in the ground. After about 50 of these buggers we thought maybe we should hire a local guy who had been bugging us to hire him to put in the fence. We're no spring chickens any more and thought maybe we ought to give him a call, besides it was HOT and we just don't have a lot of time. So we called him, he came and he and the Mr. shook hands on a price. Well after waiting 6 months on this guy to start, we decided he didn't want to work.....imagine that! So, we put our gloves back on and got to pounding posts again!
866 post later, we had put in 5 1/2 ft. steel fence posts with 5 strands of barbed wire all around the place. There is great satisfaction in driving down the road that borders our place and seeing all of that fence that WE put in! If I do say so myself, it looks pretty darned good!
But now with that aside...I want to tell you all about building the fence at the farm. When we purchased it, there were just some scraggly remains of an old fence. So, we knew we needed to get it done...you can't keep your cows in if you don't! After measuring the perimeter, we figured it was roughly about 2 miles of fence. We started purchasing posts and barbed along until we felt that we had enough. If you purchase a pallet of posts you'll sometimes get a little discount. We purchased about 1000 posts which gave a little leverage when it came to pricing. If you will call around for prices, sometimes stores will match prices. You've got to do what you can to save money in these times. We watched for specials and did a lot of price checking.
Last spring we hired a man to weld the corners and the entrance gates. Your fence is only as good as your corners and we want this to last.
We hired a local man to do the welding and purchased the pipe in bulk from a company that specializes in pipe. The welder told us what we needed and I ordered it. The problem we encountered though was that the pipe was longer than anything we had to haul it. Fortunately, the welder had a long enough trailer and he hauled it to the farm for us.
After he was finished, we were ready to start pounding posts into the ground. It was July and we were ready to get started. We knew we could do this!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Burden on my heart
Do you just ever wonder....what might be your purpose for being on this earth? I'd like to think I'm doing
and walking the path that I'm supposed to. We raised two fine sons to adulthood. One is happily married
and the other is still searching for his lifemate. We have plans to move to the farm after I graduate. We still
need to build a house and are waiting for our other farm to sell, to be able to start that. But, I have a burden
on my heart that keeps surfacing. I keep thinking about children who need a home. Whether they need a
foster home or they need to be adopted doesn't seem to matter. I keep thinking about them. I keep thinking
that there are children that don't have parents that love them or a place to call home. That is so vital to a
child's well being. Every child deserves that. I'm curious to see what the future brings to us. We can't do
anything right now, but what about in the next couple of years. I wonder what our grown sons would think
about another sibling. In the meantime...I'll just keep praying that I am walking the path intended for me.
and walking the path that I'm supposed to. We raised two fine sons to adulthood. One is happily married
and the other is still searching for his lifemate. We have plans to move to the farm after I graduate. We still
need to build a house and are waiting for our other farm to sell, to be able to start that. But, I have a burden
on my heart that keeps surfacing. I keep thinking about children who need a home. Whether they need a
foster home or they need to be adopted doesn't seem to matter. I keep thinking about them. I keep thinking
that there are children that don't have parents that love them or a place to call home. That is so vital to a
child's well being. Every child deserves that. I'm curious to see what the future brings to us. We can't do
anything right now, but what about in the next couple of years. I wonder what our grown sons would think
about another sibling. In the meantime...I'll just keep praying that I am walking the path intended for me.
Snow
United States, but here in our part of the world, we usually don't get this much snow. We woke up
Wednesday morning to 8 inches of fluffy white snow.
The dogs certainly enjoyed it! After it began to warm up a little ( it was 3 degrees) it made for a great day
to see all of the beauty!
I don't know if you can see it or not, but the grass was sparkling as the sun shone it! It looked like the faries
had been out sprinkling their magic dust! Beauty all around us.....enjoy the day and see if you can see the
beauty!!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Continuation of story
Well....I don't have class today.....yeah!! Another snow day here in the Ozarks....we'll see how bad this one gets. The weather men are predicting some really bad icing here and that's just not good at all. Two years ago we had one of the worst ice storms I've ever seen and don't want to go through one again. We were without power for about 6 days and that's a lot better than a lot of people had it. So I figured I could get some computer time in and continue the story of finding our farm.
After we moved over here in 2004, we began casually looking for land. We'd look at the listings on the internet. Everytime we were out and they had real estate magazines, I'd pick them up and peruse through them and we'd look at the newspaper listings. Then after we found something interesting, we'd go look at it and hike if it really interested us.
We found a beautiful 80 acre piece north of Gainsville, MO. It is in the Almartha community. We originally went with the real estate agent and looked at it and went back the next weekend and hiked around it. It is completely fenced and has two ponds on it. It is about 60% open and 40% wooded. There are some beautiful views from the hill top.
Then as we hiked around it, we found some very interesting rock formations in the woods. I thought it would be a wonderful place to take photos of people! If you look very closely, you'll be able to see that the rock looks like a bench; it is open underneath it.
It is gently rolling with lots of lush grass and we could just visualize our cows happily munching along.
It even has an old homeplace on it! I can only imagine what it was like living in that house!
But alas.....this wasn't to be the retirement farm. We realized it was too far from the lake. We really like to fish and wanted to be closer to the lake. So......the search began again.
If you are looking for a wonderful place......this one is for sale. 80 beautiful acres...it is quiet and serene with beautiful views of the surrounding farms. The taxes are low...$28 per year.....can you believe it? If you might be interested....contact me!
Have a great day and hopefully you'll not have too many problems with the weather!
After we moved over here in 2004, we began casually looking for land. We'd look at the listings on the internet. Everytime we were out and they had real estate magazines, I'd pick them up and peruse through them and we'd look at the newspaper listings. Then after we found something interesting, we'd go look at it and hike if it really interested us.
We found a beautiful 80 acre piece north of Gainsville, MO. It is in the Almartha community. We originally went with the real estate agent and looked at it and went back the next weekend and hiked around it. It is completely fenced and has two ponds on it. It is about 60% open and 40% wooded. There are some beautiful views from the hill top.
Then as we hiked around it, we found some very interesting rock formations in the woods. I thought it would be a wonderful place to take photos of people! If you look very closely, you'll be able to see that the rock looks like a bench; it is open underneath it.
It is gently rolling with lots of lush grass and we could just visualize our cows happily munching along.
It even has an old homeplace on it! I can only imagine what it was like living in that house!
But alas.....this wasn't to be the retirement farm. We realized it was too far from the lake. We really like to fish and wanted to be closer to the lake. So......the search began again.
If you are looking for a wonderful place......this one is for sale. 80 beautiful acres...it is quiet and serene with beautiful views of the surrounding farms. The taxes are low...$28 per year.....can you believe it? If you might be interested....contact me!
Have a great day and hopefully you'll not have too many problems with the weather!
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