Tag: The Ranch

What’s With The Hoity-Toity Label? I Need An Assistant Or Two, A Damn Good Creek, It Happens

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz34 Comments

A few of you guessed correctly on my last post. We’ve reluctantly decided to take down the 1980’s ranch house and start over. After talking to three builders and an accomplished renovator, there was not a good way to update the house to our standards. Plus, I had an epiphany a few weeks ago: I want to live on that land, so the house really wouldn’t have stood up to my day to day living standard because I’m *hoity-toity.

I know I said before I couldn’t see myself living on that huge piece of land, isolated, but you know, people are wearing on me. It happens.

*When I was about 21 my dad had this ridiculously horrible woman in his life and she called me hoity-toity. Mind you, I’d spent most of my childhood at the bowling alley, the laundromat or in a trailer park, if that gives you any indication on her class rating system. There was nothing fancy about this girl, who worked at Ponderosa & Marshalls while attending Beauty School, but apparently having manners upgraded me to High Class and that bothered her. She was then, and now, if still alive: garbage. One day I need to blog about this person, but I also hate giving any energy to her memory as she caused a lot of strife.

So, the Coach already had a post & beam barn in production, but now we’re downsizing his barn, upsizing and moving the house to the best location which is a bit further up from the previous home. If you’re gonna go big, why not go big and do it right? The bigness/size has been a big discussion between the two of us. I’m afraid I’m gonna lose that battle, but I’ve been assured that I won’t have to take care of all of it; we can hire help. I’m thinking Mr. Belvedere for inside and Rip Wheeler for outside; you know, cows and stuff.

(Stuff=Wrangler jeans)

DAMN IT!

I mentioned before that there is a lovely creek crick going through the property, with plans to damn it, make a large pond and then let the crick continue on; this will happen on the north side of the property.

The crick upclose and personal.

Our guys who have been excavating/cleaning up the property (Wait till you see the new, lovely fences!) found that we have several springs in a low lying area; so a front pond is in the works as well.

Me shouting to my grown children: YOU GET A POND! AND YOU GET A POND!

You can see the cows up on the hill chomping down and some wild turkeys on the side. Poultry, not the whiskey.

EASY GO, EASY COME

Remember me yukking it up about losing so much weight by walking this past week. Well, Peanut and I took two days off from our trails and I put on 135lbs. Peanut is up 3 ounces. It happens.

HOME SHORT TIMER ISSUES

This house. I mean, I love the GA house, but I think it knows we’re on our way out. Our ice maker broke, the a/c stopped working on the main level (we needed it 2x this week) a tree fell and I found six more trees being murdered slowly by invasive beetles. I know, it happens, but dang! All in a 12 day visit?

Have you ever heard the phrase Hoity Toity before?

How do we feel about ponds and cricks? (we always call them cricks for some weird reason)

XOXO

Your friend Suz, who isn’t hoity toity but changes her mind a bit too much.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who nurture something or someone.

This Mother Needs A Day Off and Walking To Extreme Thinness.

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz39 Comments

The Week before last I’d noticed Peanut had some sort of injury to her front left paw. *Did she hurt it while moving furniture? While pressure washing the roof tiles? Who knows. The Coach and I looked several times at her paw and couldn’t find anything obvious.

Finally, a day later after watching her toddle through the grass holding up her bad paw, I realized it was her Dewclaw; it was split to the base. OUCH. Luckily, my vet let me drop her off the next morning and they would fit her in between appointments to address her work injury.

I dropped her off early in the morning, we were departing for GA that afternoon and I had loads of stuff to do in/around the house and off property. I hated leaving her at the office, but HOLY MACKEREL was I able to get a boatload of stuff done without her around. I felt so accomplished and when the vet called me at 12:30, I’d checked everything off my list.

Our Vet ended up taking most of the nail off, and didn’t need to sedate her.

I told the Coach later on, that I forgot how much time I actually had to myself when I wasn’t tending to another being; maybe I need to take her to Doggy Daycare a few days a week?

I’m not gonna do that because then I couldn’t be a glutton, but I do understand why Mom’s need to have a day off from their kids. I’m surprised I lasted as long as I did with my girls before they started Kindergarten. Of course, I was young and had some actual energy.

*I can only hope to the Good Lord that she hasn’t noticed those Work Injury Lawyers on TV and she refrains from suing us for her pain and suffering.

Some lovely Iris’s I came across at our Ranch Property while visiting the other day

The weather in GA has been phenomenal; such a nice reprieve from our summer temps in SW Florida. Peanut and I have been walking daily; I have one specific trail that I like since it’s close to our house and fully paved. There are many primitive trails here, but I refrain from those during the warmer months because copperhead snakes are prevalent and they blend in with the landscape. I love nature, but not venomous snakes. After an uphill/downhill 50-55 minute walk, this girl is beat. Peanut as well.

Our third day here, I asked the Coach: Do you even recognize me? All this walking, I must’ve lost a lot of weight and I’ll probably require a new wardrobe.

He replied that he couldn’t actually see me, but could hear my voice. So yes, I probably lost about 130lbs.

I like when things work fast in my favor.

Anyone come across a Copperhead lately? And I’m not talking about the fiery redhead in your ‘hood.

We’ve come to a Very Big Decision with the 113 acre Ranch Property and it’s not what I had imagined a year ago. I will have to gather my thoughts and share soon. Can you even guess?

XOXO

Regrets, I’ll Have At Least One. Cows go Moo, SapSuckers Go Tap Tap Tap

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz38 Comments

December 2023 me is going to cuss the living daylights out of January 2023 me. The way I took down the Christmas tree, with all the lights hanging/dangling/hiding/tangled between each section was a crime in the making. But I just didn’t have it in me to untangle, remove and sort the lights as a sane person would. I’m going to be so regretful of my impatience next Christmas.

*We generally go to GA for Thanksgiving and when we get back home, I stress about Christmas decorating because I’ve generally not done any shopping or planning and decorating just adds to my dread. (reading that again and it’s evident that I don’t have my shit together; I swear I used to) I declared to the Coach that this year, I will decorate the house entirely before we depart for Thanksgiving.

Hey, when November comes, can ya’ll remind me of this great idea and can someone come help with the light situation? Pretty please?

SHE’S SUCH A BABY, The DOLPHINS COWS MAKE HER CRY.

Peanut finally had her first visit to the Ranch just before we came back to Florida. The Coach wanted to document the property via his fancy-ass drone before more work on the land was done. The Cows were mooing and mooing as cows do and Peanut the Bad Ass was growling, from the safety of her SUV.

A bit later, when we were walking or in the UTV and a cow was close, The Bad Ass started shaking and hiding behind me. She’s such a baby.

As we were venturing around the property, I was really enjoying the Winter look to the place; I mean, it’s not as pretty as when everything is lush and green, but the winter perspective is to be appreciated. There were gobs of blue birds and downy woodpeckers flitting about; I’ve never seen a downy woodpecker (of course I got excited) and I rarely see bluebirds, so that was fun.

Our favorite tree
A still shot over part of the property that the Coach captured with his drone.

MORE PECKERS?!

Back at home, I spotted an unusual-to-me bird in the tree outside my office window. I knew it was a woodpecker, but what in the Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors is it? After squinting my eyes through the blinds at least twenty seven times and then looking through my handy dandy laminated bird guide for our area that arrived with my AARP card, I realized what I was seeing was a Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker. THEY DO EXIST!

Again, I might have gotten too excited about this and what has my life come to?

Did birds exist before I turned 50? Most likely, no.

Although, I still have this memory from when Lindsay was in kindergarten, explaining one morning to her teacher that she was So Tired because the birds woke her up early. I was probably too busy to notice them.

Please tell me I’m not alone in my enjoyment of The Birds and especially The New-to-me Birds.

Are you embarrassed at how I stored my tree for the next year?

XOXO

Could Green Acres Bee The Life For Me?

On By SuzIn As blogged by Suz37 Comments

I’ve put this off long enough as I’m pretty forthcoming with things around here.

*looks around at no other human in the vicinity*

About a year ago, the Coach decided he wanted to have some property in GA near our mountain home. We love the house and the ‘hood, but like all POA’s/HOA’s, you are required to follow rules.

My husband? Not a fan of all the silly POA rules.

He’s been pining away for some land where he can ride four wheelers, safely shoot target practice and pee outside. (men and women are an entirely different species. Am I right or amiright?)

When he first started discussing this, there was much eyerolling from my end. Yeah, whatever, you’re not going to do that. I mean, he has too much going on already; he/we can’t fit in another project, another piece of land to tend to, etc…

Well, he’s like a dog with a bone. He got my Aunt Trisha (our realtor) involved and we went from just looking at property to looking at property where we could possibly build little VRBO rentals and let the Kid’s homestead the property in various ways, while the Coach had room to ‘play’. We’d looked at several places, all around 15-20 acres and nothing really spoke to him.

Post Thanksgiving where my family watched YouTube videos about building VRBO’s, building a lake, growing mushrooms and raising hairy cows. *sigh* My Lillie on Coach’s lap.

Finally, a piece of land, not only spoke to him, it practically shouted his name. Crazily, the mouthy property was not for sale. It was a lovely sprawling pasture across the road from a place we’d just looked at. It caught his eye and he couldn’t let it go.

About three days later…

Insert yourself in the car with my Aunt, Uncle and Coach one afternoon looking at potential properties.

Coach: Well, I emailed and called Nancy SuchandSuch, she currently owns the property at 123 perfect place road. She’s an educator at a university in Michigan. This was her Daddy and StepMom’s house; her Dad built in in 1984 so he could get away from City Folk. Her Dad passed away in 2015; she comes here one or two times a year. Yada Yada….

I looked at him sideways…what a SLEUTH!

Nancy flat out told him it wasn’t for sale.

My husband LOVES a challenge as much as I love old trees.

Fast forward six months later, he wore her down with a generous offer and we closed on the property in October. Ya’ll, it’s eighty eight acres. 88!

But wait, there’s more!

A neighbor caught wind of the sale and offered the Coach another 25 acres attached and of course my husband took him up on that.

We’re the proud owners of 113 acres in beautiful NW Georgia.

There are rolling hills, old trees, amazing views, a beautiful creek and the property backs up to State conservation land.

Let’s talk about the 1980’s house that has not seen one update. This is the side/front view.

Lolo was a fan of the shag carpet and the outdated kitchen. (can you see the Gems we found in the kitchen, but the owner would not include in the sale?)

Me: I think if we paint the brick white and paint all the trim a dark gray/black, the outside has potential.

Lolo: Don’t you dare go and Joanna Gaines’ this house!

By golly, I’ll Joanna Gaines whatever I want!

We’ve named the property Double L Ranch after our girls; signage is in the works.

I think the Coach might have had hopes of moving to this property, but that won’t work for me. I’d be too isolated and that’s not what I want in my future. We’ve lived on a large piece of property for 25 years (our Florida place) and I’m happy to now have neighbors at our GA place.

The lovely thing is that this piece of property is 12 minutes from our current POA home. The kids have all picked out areas where they will want to build a place one day and then, maybe then if they are there with their brood, I could be convinced to move to the Family Commune.

Right now part of the land is leased to a gentleman who has about 30 cows, but his lease is up this spring.

The Coach has already started plans on his Barn…which I don’t think you can even call it a Barn as it is something out of Architectural Digest. And he has dreams of raising some of these one day. (as pets, not for food)

He’s also slated to start building a large lake as well to attract even more wildlife. Right now there are a plethora of deer, bear and birds.

A few months ago, Lolo and Nathan were ready to leave Law Enforcement, move to the old 80’s house and start a new endeavor, but Lolo has just been promoted and has some new exciting things happening in her career that she’s always wanted to do, so they will wait.

Meanwhile, if you want to find me, I’ll be in my cozy POA ‘hood and my husband will be at the Ranch peeing outside.

What say you: would you prefer to live on a vast piece of land with no other humans, or in a ‘hood?

XOXO