Yes. You can.

I've never been the toughest or strongest chick around, a fact that never bothered me much and one I never really thought would change.  I was just, you know, me - more analytical than athletic.  More tender than tough.  More weenie than winner - you get my point.  

Storm coming in over fields near Coyote Creek

Moving here's changed some of that, sort of.  I mean, let's face it, I'll never be the kind of cowgirl I've always envied; the type who knows exactly how to tack up a horse with a Western saddle, can call the cows in with a two-fingered whistle, and back up a livestock trailer one-handed.  I will always always cry a little at the sight of a rattlesnake and "culling" my own irreversibly ill animals - forget about it.  You've got to know your limits.  

Pretty old Lady

 There are so many components to this life I never anticipated.  If you're not from the country, and if you've only admired it from behind a car windshield, some realities are worth understanding.  Unless you're independently wealthy (congratulations!!), country living demands a lot of manual labor.  Growing up in a rather manual labor-free environment, this realization was a shock to my sensibilities.  Turns out: trees don't dismantle and clear themselves.  Water buckets don't stay full in perpetuity.  Escaped animals rarely return without first being chased (and found) in jungle/thickets.  Cars stuck in mud don't extricate themselves.  While Jeremy always bears the brunt of these burdens, I've helped too.  The loss of my back this spring was proof of two things: 1) Obviously, I hadn't done much of this type of constant work before, and; 2) I DID, I really, really did help. 

What remains of a town square

Today I met Kimberly out at Coyote Creek Farm again for more organic livestock feed.  This time I tripled the amount of feed previously purchased.  The goats are weaned now (this involved a level of goat screaming and drama that was really worth filming), and their grain intake has increased.  Remembering to grab my camera, I snapped a few shots of the places mentioned yesterday and a few more places that I often pass on my errands around these parts.  They're all pieces of this life that motivate me to give the whole tough-as-nails-cow-girl thing a good, solid effort.  Just because I started out a little puny doesn't mean I have to stick with that identity forever. 

Road home

View towards Austin 

There's something about bouncing down potholed country roads carrying a load of feed and hay that gives a girl confidence.  Plus, the view's a lot better from behind the wheel of a beat up pick-up truck.  By the time I got home, the storm that had been threatening off to the east started to grumble overhead.  The 450lbs of feed and hay just purchased would sit out in the rain unless I took some action.  It was obvious I'd have to move them all, something Jer would normally do for me after returning from work.  So, I backed Buster up to the barn and chucked the contents of his bed inside, arranging them all along one side like a proper feed room. 

6 months ago, it's unlikely I could/would have chucked 450lbs of anything from the bed of a truck through an open door.  There's a damn fine view from the inside of the barn now.  Pretty enough to make me want to kiss my arm muscles, put my hands on my hips, and try to call the animals in with a two-fingered whistle.  Turns out I still stink at the whistling thing, but I'm pretty sure there's a legitimate cowgirl/farmer in here who's finally making her way out.

My Town

My friend Cindy found the real estate listing for this land.  We'd only been searching under the farm and ranch category but she looked up "lots" and this place popped up like a little shining beacon of light.  The price was (almost) right and it was tantalizingly close to Austin.  I remember poring over the listing 10 times.  I had the thing memorized in 20 minutes.  So much about it seemed right except for one very important detail - the town it's affiliated with.  In fact, I remember literally hearing alarm bells in my head the second I read the name of the little town.  It was enough that I closed the listing on my browser.  Shut my laptop.  Walked away from it for awhile.  That's how strongly I disliked the town.  Keep in mind, I had never actually been into the place prior to viewing the land.  Instead, I'd driven on its outskirts and I'd heard enough rumors and seen enough negative reactions to its name that I wanted nothing to do with the place.  In retrospect, my reaction wasn't very open-minded or benefit-of-the-doubt-y.  I snap judged it with the best of them.

However, since we've spent more time here and especially since we've moved in, my perception of this area has changed dramatically.  It would be a gross exaggeration to state that the town we're close to is charming.  That's a stretch.  It would also be hyperbole to go so far as saying it's a nice place to hang out.  It's not.  What our town does have though, is promise and history.  Lots of both.  Today I took the old farm truck out for a spin into town to pick up a post office delivery and return something to a Red Box movie receptacle (by God, we DO have a Red Box here!).  It occurred to me today that this was the first time I'd "run errands" in this place.  Normally, I'm only in town to drive through to a highway or grab a Route 44 lime iced tea from Sonic. 

Since I started reading the book, Evolution of a State  by Noah Smithwyck, I realize exactly what this spot used to be.  More than 100 years ago, the hills and prairie just east of Austin were the blooming center of the Texas economy (outside of Galveston, of course).  Bastrop's ample supply of timber and its location on the Colorado made it a prime spot for trade and business.  All the land between that town and Austin were owned, farmed, and managed by just a few powerful families like the Hornsby's and Gilleland's.  Their legacy is everywhere in the names of creeks and roads here.  But what they molded from the earth has been all but lost to poverty and a departure from small farming after the irreversible impact of the 1950's droughts.  One full block of my town maintains some of the original structures and a few blocks off the northern end of the "square" sits one of the most beautiful Victorian painted ladies I've ever seen.  She is a three-story monster of brick and stained glass, each level wrapped in porches.  Although she sags at the edges these days, it's obvious she looked over a bustling little town and acres of farmland from her perch on a hill.  Right about now you'd probably expect some photos of this, right?  A picture of that house and maybe the little stretch of old buildings (where one of my favorite Mexican restaurants lives).  The problem is that it didn't really occur to me until I was crossing the old railroad tracks in town that I finally photograph these places.  With only my iPhone, I just kept driving.  Plus, there's a teeny part of me that's sure others will see the pictures and do what everyone does: wrinkle their nose and question my sanity. 

I think you have to live here to see that there's shiny copper underneath this grimy penny of a place.  On the outskirts, proper businesses are taking root.  Austin's coming out this way, too and with that will be grocery stores and Targets.  All of those amenities will be a welcome change but means more people and development.  Tomorrow I'm taking my camera back down by the tracks where the old buildings still huddle together and house greasy spoon restaurants and empty warehouses.  I want to capture this place on the cusp of whatever's coming next.  It's a fleeting stage; a tiny town in between its past and its future.  I think my town has been stuck somewhere in the middle long enough to develop a reputation is doesn't really deserve.  Sometimes, you have to know the history of a place to believe it can be something again.  Picking up my box at the post office, I was greeted, for the first time ever, by an overwhelmingly charming postal worker.  She asked my name and introduced herself.  If this is the kind of place where the mailmen know my name, and I bump into neighbors at the fried fish joint, then I welcome all the dirt around its edges.

It's Official

Just as we suspected, Simon has become a permanent fixture on the porch.  He has given up the free-wheeling life of a feral forest cat. 

Alien

Like most weekends, we spent some time with friends last night. Probably, it doesn't bear noting. There's nothing too special about getting together at a restaurant or lounging around someone's living room. But lately, "hanging out" has become a bigger deal for me. We've made a real effort to insert social time into each weekend, but increasingly, it does take effort - not because I don't want to see other people in the world who exist outside the boundaries of these 15 acres - but because it's getting harder to pull myself away. Actually, it's getting harder to find people outside of this property interested enough in what goes on here to talk about it. In essence, I fit in less and less with everyone else.  I expect it will just get worse until I'm only able to converse about the basics, like the weather, and eventually only in some form of rudimentary sign language. Not many folks can relate to this life beyond polite conversation, and why would they? Who runs off to the forest where the ground turns into swampy marshland with the slightest rain, where scorpions fall off the wall onto kitchen counters, and goats sleep on trash cans on the porch? Who chooses to live without the convenience of trash pickup or driveways or clean floors? This guy.

This week has truly tested our fundamental passion for the property.  Regardless of how cozy and livable we make the inside, any wet weather smacks us back into reality - we're still sitting in the middle of a spot not meant for human occupants.  I've gone to bed each night with feet covered in mud up to the ankles, wake up and step onto a pile of dirt that crumbled off my dogs and has fallen in trails throughout the house.  The moment I walk outside one of our animals comes bounding towards us, happily caked in fresh mud, flinging their bodies against me - "Feed me!  I love you!"  It's not precious.  Friday afternoon I arrived home to the third torrential downpour of the week and the ground, already saturated beyond anything I've witnessed previously, completely gave up.  Turned into a 3 acre river right there in front of the house and across the driveway, taking out huge chunks of it on its happy way downhill.  The 5 dogs left out on the porch came galloping up to my car which I parked at the gate, unable to drive anywhere near the house.  Leaving my computer, purse, and files in the car (and wearing office clothes), I sprinted down the drive to the goat pen, and set them free.  All four goats stood huddled, wet and shivering, against the outside of their shelter.  By the time the dogs and goats and I had made it onto the porch, I was completely soaked.  Mud was caked up to my knees.  Paw and hoof prints were strategically smattered across my bottom, my front, on my arms.  I ran inside grabbing clean towels and started the 30 minute process of toweling 7 animals.  Went inside, sat on my bedroom floor in wet clothes, started to cry.  It wasn't tears of sadness, obviously, but lots of frustration mixed with a strange sense of happiness.  As someone who has lived a life committed entirely to maintaining total control - this world represents the ultimate immersion therapy.  I have to give up and give in.  For a farm, it's a sacrifice I willingly make.

Over dinner last night people discussed movies and work stories.  The place was so packed I could hardly hear anyone.  My throat was sore from shouting.  It's good to go out, but it's getting tougher to beat my own front porch.  And there's less for me to talk about that others understand.  Aside from giving a general goat-progress update, no one cares about my plans for a dairy cow or the big decision to create a goat pasture out of the 5 wooded acres behind the house.  Or the trouble with training teenage chickens.  Or the fear of the mountain lion we know is living somewhere near our property.  No one has asked (why would they) about my experiment making kefir from Fran's cultures and raw milk.  And the magical discovery of her dairy just down the road?  Not interested.  These things that increasingly overtake all my other interests - they're just mine.  I accept that.  Now I have to find a way to go out in the world without appearing like an alien in a foreign land.  Merging these worlds won't get easier, I suspect, and it's no burden, just an observation about the distinct differences between all of us.  Regardless, it's comforting to know there's a whole group of us out there, even if we're not getting together for coffee and wine on weekends.  Why would we - you're just like me and would rather sit on your own front porch to watch an evening storm roll in.

Kimberly of Star Creek Country recently created a list of all the best things she sees in her barnyard and backyard.  It includes the sort of observations I make daily and could never share over dinner in downtown Austin.  Just knowing someone else notices the way baby chicks steal bugs from each other - well - it's the sort of reminder I appreciate this morning.  There's a network of us out here, aliens in the midst of conventional 2012 living, more comfortable in a creek bed than a bar. 
It's so nice to meet you.

After the Deluge

Rain.  So much rain.  Creeks turned into rivers.  Dirt turned to slime.  It was glorious.

A Long View

Last night a storm blew in all of a sudden the way they always do in summer time.  From the goat pen I watched a storm head gather and double itself 50 times above us.  When a big cold wind blew in, the clouds moved along faster.  I never noticed these things before, or I did, but I didn’t stop and take note.  There’s a difference.   Right now we’re sitting on the front porch that faces onto the big pasture.  The thunder is rolling in again from the north east.  If I step out to the front yard I’ll be able to diagnose exactly where it’s headed, how wide it spreads.  In the city I could only see what was just above.  So I didn’t look up much.  I missed a lot.

A huge aspect of the entire house design was always the porch.  At one point during the 100 house iterations, our porch was scrapped.  In fact I’m sure I hung onto that version of the house plan in one of my dingy, worn out house notebooks where so many scribbled versions of this place are stashed, just because.  It was a moment of desperation to erase porches after one of the 15 bids came back with an astronomical amount of zeros at the end.  Doing this again, I’d make the house smaller, porches bigger.  Add more windows.  I’d extend the roof awnings out beyond the point of utility just so there’d be more tin to catch the rain.  Sitting under a tin roof during a thunderstorm is alarming, exhilarating, and relaxing all at once.  It invokes the kind of emotions that, if bottled, could probably cure most of what ails us – anxiety, discontent. 

Things moved fast since we packed up the last of it from Austin, accumulated farm animals and started living in this new place.  So fast, in fact, that I already think I’ve forgotten everything that went into getting here – although the forgetting has been like licking wounds.  Necessary to heal.   Recently, folks have reached out to ask questions about our process as they begin their own journey into the country.  What would you do differently?  How did you decide on the roof pitch?  Why did you settle on this vs. that?  I love the questions and am glad for the way it’s forced me to turn it all over again in my hands a few times.  There is a lot we would do differently.  And we wouldn’t do it again – not this way.  I love the house – the light and space and the big views of sky that come in from the high windows.  



But all of that matters so little compared to what’s outside the door we spent so many hours scrutinizing and considering.  In the end, who cares if they are painted French blue, full lite, solid wood, or are 36”?



For the longest time I contemplated finding an old, small house to move out here, plop down in the woods and just build acres of porches around.  Even now, in this house I do love, I am wistful for that old creaky, leaky place. 

What would I do differently?  I’d think long and hard about precisely what matters most, and I would have focused on just those things: front porches, baby goats running in the forest, a garden with a view of the hills, a clean kitchen and warm bed.  For those of you considering the big step of land and house and are starting with a blank, rugged slate - give yourself this much – at least: an honest shoulder shaking.  Why are you really going out to the country?  What do you think will matter most once you’re there?  You can never know for sure what will draw you in once you’re there – but you can try.  

Last week when Jer was out of town for the 4^th of July, I hunkered down at the farm by myself, unsure of the extent of country fireworks or how my group of animals would respond to them.  Before the sun set, the distinct sounds of pop! and whizzz! surrounded us on all sides, but I couldn’t see a thing in the sky.  It wasn’t until the huge butter colored moon wobbled up into view above the tree line that so many little explosions in the sky appeared beside it.  The beauty of it caught me off guard, and I sank down into a chair on the porch.  The lights from the fireworks and the moon reflected off the windows behind me and in the eyes of four little goats who stood mesmerized, staring at the sky above, chewing their cud quietly.  If we hadn’t positioned the house just so, or placed a porch across the front in just this way, I might never have been audience to precisely this view.  No architect, no matter how well-trained, can plan this for you. 

In asking for advice about building a house in the country, someone questioned my “regrets.”  I don’t have many – only that we should have traded this inside space for bigger porches and more land.  But the perspective from here backwards is always better informed, and that sort of thinking is useless.  The first step is really just figuring out where you want to be and then work like crazy to get there.  For me, getting there could have meant a creaky, leaky shelter with an expanse of tin-covered porches and a long view of the big sky.    

Brace Yourself

This is really disgusting.  But also fairly adorable.  It's a confusing mix of emotions.  Recently, we've started taking all of the animals (literally) for walks around the entire property.  This means that everyone spends some good, quality time with the pond - otherwise known as the Algae Research Facility.  Due to the mix of heat and rain, the entire thing has turned into an enormous science experiment.  I'm sure you're waiting with bated breath to learn what happens when scum, turtles, fetid water and humidity combine.  Hopefully the pictures say enough that I don't have to.