One Reason to Live on Buhlaland

Recently we had business north of Fort Worth and travel during "rush hour" for city folks. Kindest part was being behind a Texas State Trooper for part of the drive (strange how much more polite drivers are with an officer of the law in their vicinity). You see our GPS (thank you again April and Reese for a very thoughtful gift). The rush, difficult traffic transitions and occasional heart pounding near misses by drivers determined to share our lane of the road - defying laws of physics which say two objects cannot occupy same space at same time - resulted in a psalm of praise when we returned to our quiet place in the world.

Psalm 16: 5 LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the LORD.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Yes it is GOOD on Buhlaland and we are grateful "rush hour" is when it is time to feed the dogs and goats!

Moment of reflection ---- and then a big WOO HOOO

A tiny bit sad - our incredible little renovation job (took over 6 months and I don't want to SAY how much money) on the Rock House across the road from us. It is no longer Our little Rock House. For a moment I want to reflect on how much work and detail and charm (and sweat and stepping on a rusty nail and taking antibiotics for 2 weeks and innumerable bites and stings from things dislodged from ancient hiding places) went into the renovation. We bought the little house hoping to make it into an office/guest house/gift shop/terrific thing to own. DH and I put in bead board ceilings - one piece at a time and custom fitting the cedar crown molding. Replaced every window in the building with those cool tilt out energy efficient windows and painted it historically correct red and a creamy almost yellow color. The front half bath was all red (why skimp on a good thing right?) I won't go through the whole 6 months - but we literally rebuilt the building trying to keep a charm of old with high energy efficiency and functionality.
THEN - reality came along and we found we weren't really being good stewards just using it as an office. So we moved our office into part of our workshop here at Buhlaland - and put the Rock House up for sale.

Today was the big day - closed on the property and the young man who bought it is moving in as I type. He and his girlfriend were pretty excited.
A little sadness about no longer owning our completely renovated little house ----
THEN some genuine gladness over the infusion of funds - as in money. First we'll pay ahead for a year for our Compassion sponsored kids then we pay off a little debt and THEN - well I'll do a Scarlett O'Hara on that one - I'll think about that tomorrow.
Just thought I'd share this with my bloggerities. If I don't see you before then - Have a safe and sane Independence Day celebration - ribs, ice cream, salad shared with some of our best friends - cannot get better for a holiday! It is so good on Buhlaland - you never know where the Lord is taking us but we know it is always better than anywhere we could have imagined.

Monday Morning

Good Monday Morning to you! We had a little rain last night so the moisture droplets may be raindrops rather than dew - I love the spent blossoms (spikey, feathery looking things on the end of long stems) contrasting with the purple star blooms.

Yesterday's lunch was pleasant - getting to know a new family and visiting with friends we have known for a while. Didn't make rolls - decided on a beer batter bread - good flavor with the pot roast and roasted chicken. Everyone seemed to enjoy the no milk/ no soy experiments - in particular the apple crisp and chocolate cake. Freshly grated nutmeg makes anything with apples taste so much better.

Busy week ahead - thankful that we have some real estate closings occurring and are going to take our '07 wethers to market in the next few days. The goats are getting big and it is more than time to be back to our smaller herd of mostly does and Rocky the buck-to-be (he isn't very big yet - he was a bottle baby and had lots of setbacks). Probably a late birthing season next year - Rocky won't be up to his new job until late in the fall at best.

Garden is doing OK - we need to till up the area where we had potatoes and broccoli - warm weather vegetables need to fill in now. Tomato plants are doing well although I never did get cages or stakes in place to hold them up. I try to make gardening "easy" and some things work better than others. Last year the garden was overrun with weeds due to no mulch and invasion of bermuda grass.

The odd appearing "mulch" is cut up grain sacks - had to supplement feed the goats so much this winter we had an oversupply of feed sacks! Keeps the weeds down well and definitely lowers the evaporation of moisture. A minor form of recycling?

Busy week - time to get after the real estate part of our lives. Nothing is easy however grateful working in our own business and trust that we can help people by doing what we do well.