A BUCKET LIST EXPERIENCE

 OK, that was a play on words, as you'll soon see, but I also didn't know that this should have been on my bucket list anyway, ha.  Wow was it ever fun!

This happened a couple of months ago when we had the clearing done but I forgot to post it and with the holidays, I figured I'd wait until the new year.

So, I'm standing around talking to the owner of the company that was doing the clearing, he mentions that he climbs trees and is up in the air all the time cutting branches, etc and not working in an office.  Then, he asked me if I'm afraid of heights.  I thought it was just the natural course of a conversation and discussing our jobs.  I was honest and said, "yeah, a little".  And then he goes, "oh, well I was going ask if you wanted to ride up in the bucket and see your property from up there?"

Whoa, wait, WHAT?

"I'm not THAT scared of heights..."

This was the truck.  He had to get me strapped into a safety harness, I climbed in and he locked me in with more safety harnesses, put a hardhat on me and said "if you get freaked out, just give me the thumbs down and I'll bring you back down".

He pushed the button, and I started going up!

Check out these views!

The barn/shed looking toward 2nd Family's house and their property which butts up against our front yard.

This is looking to the next door neighbor's property where the donkeys sometimes come to visit.

This is part of the 200 acres behind us.  They use it as cattle grazing land.  It's basically our backyard view.

This is looking back toward our driveway and the front part of our property.

Last but not least, this is the future homesite and orchard area behind it.  You can also see the cleared area around Barnabas (the old mesquite tree).  We still have some left to clear at a future date in that area, but we also have new areas for planting.

Maybe we can plant actual regular trees.  We'd love a good pecan tree but seeing as how they can take up to ten years to start producing (should have done that ten years ago, ha), we might have to forgo that and just get some pretty flowering trees.

And this is me, up in the bucket!  It was 60' high up fully extended like this.  It was SO much fun!  Was I nervous?  Sure, but I felt safe in the bucket and like I said, it was a TRUE bucket list experience for sure!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

It has been an absolutely beautiful weekend.  Nothing we can do at the farm of course, so yesterday we went and visited some very dear friends who are like family to us.  It was a good day.

2nd Man started some bread when we got home and baked it this morning.  It's a work in progress but came out great.  This is a whole grain and wheat bread.

You all may remember where we posted HERE about our Bonne Maman Fall Trio.  We had the "Fig Preserves" and the "Cranberry-Cherry Preserves" today.  They are SO good.  On homemade healthy bread, it was the perfect breakfast.

As for Hobart, here's a picture from when it was cold and he was sleeping on the couch and wanted to be covered up...well, most of him covered up.  He likes to have leg sticking out.  We guess it's the perfect balance and we are willing to oblige.  Because...

#notspoiled

CRYSTAL LAMP GLOBES TRASH TO TREASURE

Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

Saw this sticking out of the trash area and you know me, WHAT IS THAT?!?!

I checked and it was a large floor lamp, like one of those that might go in the corner and fan out over a couch.  Unfortunately, it was thrown away because the base was broken in half (probably broke in a move) and so someone just threw the whole thing away.  I was about to leave and then I thought about saving the globes. I unscrewed them, put them in a bag, and took them with me.

Here is what they look like.  They are fairly large, chrome metal, and have glass crystal like pieces all over (not true crystal just glass).  They are incredible when they are sparking in the sunlight.  I can imagine lit up they were very pretty. 

There were five of them that I salvaged.  Here they are lined up on the truck bed before I stored them away in the barn for future use.

There is a screw type opening that is probably standard for some types of light fixtures.  They were just too cool to let go to the landfill.  I thought about how pretty they might be hanging from a tree as they catch the light, but that might not be smart in the wind, ha.  I'm sure there must be a good way to use them, short of finding another light fixture that they will screw into (though that's a possibility).  Maybe an LED candle will fit?

Anyone have any suggestions?

CHRISTMAS CACTUS PROPAGATING

A coworker has a Christmas cactus plant she got as a gift.  A piece of it broke off when she was taking it out of the box and so I thought "let's put it in some water and see what happens".

I brought it home and put it in a small glass, changing the water every couple of days.  

Sure enough...

In a couple of weeks we had roots!  I let them get a bit longer and then put it into some potting soil.

And now it's doing great!  In fact, it's doing so great...

I decided to get two more pieces, repeated the process, and they are doing great as well. 

Here's an image (via Pinterest) that shows what they look like in all their glory.  I'm not sure how long it will take to get this big but it'll be fun to watch them develop.  They like shade and not full sun or heat, so we're kind of thinking these might be nice to let grow on the screened in porch.

FORMS HAVE BEEN SET

 So...THIS happened:

They set our forms!!

The house is coming to life!  What this is for is to provide the perimeter for the concrete slab that will make up everything (porches, living space, garage).  This is the view from the front, will be looking at the entire front of the house with the garage on the right, the porch in front and the master bedroom on the far left hand side (as looking at the house).

Here are some other angles:

This is the front corner of the house, where the master closet will be and the jut out is part of the corner of the guest room and the other part is the front porch that was taking shape.

This wall encompasses the master closet, the master bath and the master bedroom.

This wall is the garage and back porch.

This is the front corner of the garage.

Here's another view of the front of the garage while standing on what will be the front porch (well, close to the front porch).

And lastly, here's a cool picture:

This is the entire back of the house, encompassing from right to left, what will be the master bedroom, living room, screened in porch, dining room, utility room and back of the garage.

What we like about this picture, and what we didn't realize, is that when we moved the house forward 10 feet (compared to the prior house) we knew we'd have more of a backyard but now we can SEE it.  And wow, we DO have a much bigger space between the house and the orchard.  We see all sorts of potential here.

Now the forms are set and this week they are loading the fill dirt into the forms.  It's a bit wet out there now after the snow melt and rainfall (this was done to beat the snow last week) so we'll see how everything goes.

We have a house taking shape!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART'S SNOW DAY SUNDAY

Today as this posts, we are having thunderstorms.  Go figure.  Just a few days ago, we had a very rare snow day here in Houston.  Actually two snow days.  It was fun and a good day to stay in where it was warm.

It helps when we have the right tools, and 2nd Man used his largest pot we got at the Factory to Table sale last year.  This is a 14 quart Le Creuset pot.  It fit two 6 pound chickens side by side!  He worked his magic and in the end:

We had a wonderful pot of chicken soup to keep us warm for the duration of the cold snap.

Thursday, we posted snow pictures HERE from the farm and from in town.  Click the link if you missed it.

Now, here was Hobart's fun snow day:

We put a bowl outside on the balcony to catch snow and brought some in for Hobart to play with.  He looked at us like "what am I supposed to do with this?"

You can see his foot marks in there, he touched it and dragged his foot through it a few times.

2nd Man made a snowball and he had a blast pushing that around the floor.  He was moving quickly so it was hard to get a good picture.  For 19 years old, he's still got speed when he needs it, ha.

Later, I decided to make a miniature snow man out on the balcony and he was utterly fascinated by it.  He watched it for a good hour or so, you know, to make sure it didn't escape, ha!

But then the fun was over, it was time to retire to a special spot we made for him: his bed with a heating pad (on low of course) under a towel.  He sleeps here for hours.  Because...

#notspoiled

 

THE GREAT HOUSTON SNOWSTORM OF 2025

Or something like that...ha!  It was a crazy day for sure but in the end, just beautiful and, for us, awe inspiring.

It started Tuesday evening...

This is the radar about 7pm, the red arrow is the farm and of course pink is snow, blue is rain.  It was freezing out there and snowing, Houston was still raining.

But that didn't last long.

During the night, it dropped below 32 while we were sleeping.  I woke up to check the weather:

It was finally 28 and snowing.

When we woke up:

It was near whiteout conditions in downtown Houston.  We couldn't see beyond about one block.

The entire city was shut down.  Almost no one went to work (except essential personnel of course), freeways were empty, virtually all stores and businesses closed, and even the two airports were closed, with no flights landing or taking off.

One it stopped, I went out to explore.  A lot of snow.  About 4" in Houston.  It was beautiful for sure.

It was a lot of snow, even on our balcony more than 25 floors up.  It was crazy and fun!

It was the soft, powdery type of snow.  We think this is the kind that people like for skiing.

At lunch, when the sun finally came out (but still below freezing), we went down downstairs to "play" in the snow and it was awesome.

I joined in an impromptu snowball fight with neighbors (epic fun at 59 years old) and then, with our first ever major snowfall, I just had to do this...

🎵Do you want to build a snowman?🎵

YES!

OK, so it won't win any awards but hey, I did what I could with what I had on hand.  Had to find enough clean white snow that hadn't already been scooped up for snowballs or had snow angels made in it, and then I used what was around in the flowerbeds to bring my snowman to life.  Several people took pictures so it was famous for a bit!

We were regretting that we weren't living at the farm yet to experience this, but "J" from 2nd Family surprised us by walking down to our end and taking pictures all around for us to have!

This was on her back porch/deck as she went outside to get some pictures.

This is one end of our driveway looking down toward the barn and shed.  In the Spring, this is one of my favorite spots to mow.

Speaking of mowing, here is one of our trails, normally a green winding path, now a white wonderland! 

This is part of our front yard, the view we will have from our future front porch.

The orchard is snow covered.  Thankfully the trees and bushes are freeze hardy (at least we hope!).

This is a pond, not ours, but one on the other side of our fence.  It's very pretty covered in snow and frozen over.  Looks like a postcard.  We wish he'd someday sell us that part of his land, it would be awesome, ha.

Barnabas looks cold and lonely in this picture, ha.  It's so wild to see this, the snow covers the weeds and trim debris and the things that sprouted up, so seeing it not only clean and white but trimmed and all alone looks so cool.  So much space for new stuff once we get out there!  We saved the best picture for last:

Just love this picture.  It might be great to have it turned into our first Christmas card to mail out next year from our new house!

We are forever grateful to "J" for getting us these possible once in a lifetime pics.  But hey, if it does happen again next year, we'll be there to experience it!

Sunday will be some Hobart snow pics, he didn't go outside but he had some snow fun nonetheless.