My Neck of the Woods - The Neighbors- Part 3

This little (well it's not exactly little) piece of history belongs to Mr. Norman and Mrs. Linda our next door neighbors. And when I say next door neighbors what I really mean is the property that directly adjoins our property. They have 75 acres so I don’t really have a view of their house from where we are. I can see their horse pasture, complete with the white wooden fences, 2 of their barns and in the winter if I squint just right I can see the back of the house and their patio from my back yard.
The house itself was built prior to the civil war sometime in the 1820’s or 30’s and it has survived 2 fires and obviously the wrath of time. It’s also on the national registry of historic homes. Some of the original outbuildings are still standing too including the carriage house and the slave quarters. Mr. Norman and Mrs. Linda have been working hard to restore it for the last 8 years and they’ve said they plan to retire there.

They don’t actually live there now- it’s their “weekend home”- so we don’t really see them on a regular basis. They live and work right outside of Atlanta and come visit on a semi-regular monthly basis. They have a small crew of people who work there daily feeding and caring for the horses and keeping the property up (must be nice right?;). They’ve also hosted several weddings and most recently a memorial service for one of our neighbors that passed away. The last wedding was a couple of months back – I think September – and Dan and I laid in our upstairs bed making wagers about what typical wedding song the DJ was going to play next. We sleep with our windows open in the summer and into late fall so it was almost like we were at the wedding ourselves. We both started laughing when we heard “Brown Eyed Girl” because we kept saying that it had to be next. But mostly it’s pretty quiet around here and that’s how we like it =).

See you next time!

My Neck of the Woods - Part 2 - The (Neigh)bors

I'd like to introduce you to Buster (at least that's what I've nicknamed him) and his exercise partners (but not by their choice). They live directly across the road from me on Mr. JB's (I'll refer to all my neighbors by their first names only - you know, for privacy's sake;) farm which consists of about 500 acres, a couple of barns, a pond or two, a few broken down tractors, a few working tractors and a truckload of firewood that is always for sale at the entrance road.

Buster just sort of appeared here one day running down the side of the road so Mr. JB corraled him into his pasture and posted "Found Pony" signs up and down the road and in alot of the local businesses around town. No one ever responded. So we speculated that either Buster's owners couldn't care for him any longer and just turned him out or he was so darn mean and onery they ran him off and didn't want him back. Now Buster spends his days chasing the poor cows (who seem to be in much better shape) up and down the hills and speaking incessantly to my horses who don't seem to have much to say in return. My horses are like an old retired couple and I don't think they have much use for his nonsense.

Next week I'll see if I can introduce you to my next door neighbors - Mr. Norman (not to be confused with the previously mentioned Mr. Norman who is the county extension agent - funny how both my neighbors on each side are named Norman) and Mrs. Linda. They own the old southern plantation home that they've been working on restoring for the last 8 years.

Until then happy trails!