mo betta ~

As my Daddy would say, "I'm mo betta."

I walked out the door this morning to go fill the outside wood stove ~ and what shall I see ~ my little ol' friend looking back at me :)

 

This yearling is in the yard every day.  It has been grazing on the new clover coming up across the driveway where we had to dig up the septic system.  

~~

We've been living here since November 1998 ~ our little corner of heaven on earth.  Our home is situated on a five acre plot of land that we bought from my Dad.  It was heavily wooded with balsam, that we spent the summer of '98 clearing to put in the house and garage.  The garage we built ourselves and had constructed before the house came.

Our house was suppose to be a prefab home (factory built) coming in two sections to be assembled on the property.  Well as our luck would have it - the company that was contracted to build our home went on strike that summer ... and guess who's house was on the line?  Yeppers... ours.  

We weren't too happy with that.  There were a lot of disgruntled workers out there while it was on the line, and they were working on our house.  Who knows what they were doing to it??  Then there were scabs coming in working that didn't know diddly squat about building a house.  It wasn't a good situation all around and we pulled out of the deal with the company.

Our contractor then took our blueprints to another company which also did prefab homes.  It took six months longer than intended but we got a better deal out of it.  The second company wasn't set up in the factory to "pre-fab" the house so they basically took our blueprints and started from scratch and "stick built" our place.  

It still came to us on a couple of big semi-trailers in sections and had to be set by a huge crane; but the quality of the materials used were much better than we had originally hoped for ... (and paid for :)

I was flipping through one of my photo albums ~ here's some pics. Sorry about the quality of them, camera flash and glare.

 ~ I love looking out my window and seeing deer.  My yard is the "safety zone" ... absolutely NO HUNTING allowed in it.   Our first winter here we had a lot of deer that would come in and browse our yard.  Yes, we harvest critters during the season; but NOT from the yard!  There is one exception though that I have made over the years.  Red squirrels ~ when they become too populated ... and after they ate the air conditioner out of my car to the tune of $480 dollars.  We did eliminate 23 of them in 3 days ... and we still have red squirrels around ~ just not as many.

 

We lucked out on the weather that year too ~ it didn't snow until the week after the house came.

 ~ the canning shelves even managed to get filled that year too ~

... all the interior work ~ finishing off the basement, spa room, basement family room, bedroom, all the balsam, spruce, cedar and tamarack paneling we cut and made ourselves.

It has been a lot of work over the years ~ but well worth it.  We've had trials and tribulations (still do at times) - who doesn't ~ but as Daddy always said, "I'm mo betta."

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today.  My Dad has been on my mind a lot lately ~ it's been five years since his passing and I really REALLY miss him.   I can't even type anymore ~ crying so hard as I post this.  He was always my rock  ~ I could go to him with everything.  

~ Update ... a few hours later ... NOW I'm much "mo betta".  I had a good cry ... not just over missing my Dad ~ but over a LOT of the stuff that has been going on in our lives lately.  My stress level it seems has been maxed out.  I said a few prayers and I truly do feel better.   When all else fails ~ turn it over to the Lord ... should have done that sooner ~ well actually, I did; but I guess I just didn't give it time to sink in to count my MANY MANY blessings sooner and to open my eyes and realize that it's a beautiful day.  

This is the day the Lord has made, Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Until next time ...

So it goes in my neck of the woods.

~mel