Living Life on the Farm

How is the 'real' country life you ask?  We are having a blast out here, learning as we go and doing quite well at muddling through actually.  Well, we think we are anyway.

Last night we had a good ol' Oklahoma storm come through.  I woke to hear the rain beating against the concrete, peeked out the window, then went back to bed.  I slept - oh my goodness how I slept - the rain made me doze right back to sleep and I slept like a baby.

This morning when I woke, I opened the door and saw this:

Venturing out, everything was strewn all over:

It was not pretty:

In fact, it was down right ugly:

And it was broken, glass embedded in the grass even:

In disbelief, I looked around and surveyed the rest of the yard.  

And found this:

It was not the only one, there were other trees down just like it - but in different places within sight.

And we found this:
 

Knowing we were in over our heads, Steve called his boss to let him know we had work to do, and boy was he not kidding!  But his poor little tractor was no match for the trees:

We realized that his little match box tractor would need assistance, so we ran to town and bought a chain saw and a 4-wheeler to tote wood to the pasture.  Yeah, my stomach is in knots...

And then we moved a mountain, errr a tree:
 

After we got that tree cleaned up, we had to move the camper away from this tree:

We moved the old boat:

And waited on the electric company to remember there were people in the country - WAY out in the country that needed lights:

And when they didn't come all day, we realized that contrary to what *we* think should happen, we are not the first on the priority list to get electric to out here in the boondocks - but that is ok, right?  We have to show them where our house is to even bring electric TO us... lol... okay, not seriously, but we are indeed not a priority for electricity.

And can you believe we both slept through all of this and didn't wake up again?  We have a good, solid, sound house - that is all I can say... lol...

I also learned that I can drive a 4 wheeler:

And it probably drives just as good as the fire engine red one I wanted (but they had sold out of)... but I still think it stinks that *I* couldn't get a red toy on wheels today - I had to settle for a icky green one.  (sorry Steph, it is just my #1 choice! lol)


How is country life?  We are learning that no one cuts the trees for us, no one drags them to a truck and hauls them off, no one even cares that a tree fell, no one cares that your driveway is blocked, no one makes electricity a priority, no one of course but us.

We know what bone tired is - and we only cut one tree up.

We know we have 3 more to go that we *know* of.  We have only checked part of the property - the part we live on.

And we know we still love this life - still think it just might be exactly what we thought all along; lots of work and lots of satisfaction and lots of long, tired days.  We know that tomorrow we can leave home and drive through all the other trees down in our neighborhood... and know we will consider ourselves lucky - the trees missed us and all the vehicles, the tractor and elbow grease moved the tree that we did move (with the help of a chain saw), and we are both ok.  Yes, we are safe and lucky - and that makes us happy.

As I say this, we are watching the lightening and storms moving in again tonight.

But I think I will sleep like a baby again and re-access the new damage tomorrow. 

Night all  :-)