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!

Thursday Morning Meeting

Apparently we're having a meeting this morning. Not sure what's being discussed between my horses, Mr. Norman's horses and Buster but Buster has alot to say as usual. You can't really see his little self in this photo but trust me he's there. Right behind that big cedar tree on the other side of the road. I'll let you know if I hear anything good though ;).

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!

Pieces of me

It’s often assumed that I grew up on a farm but actually I grew up in a subdivision surrounded by houses on every side. I think I was born with an affinity for living on a farm though and I probably inherited that from my mom’s parents. They had a little 5 acre farm where my grandfather raised goats, a garden where they grew most of their produce for the year, pear and apple trees, a little creek that ran through their property where I’d collect crawdaddies (crawfish as most people know them), seemed they always had at least one cow and he always had 5 or 6 Beagles. Running rabbits, as he called it, was a favorite past time even though it did not meet my approval. I remember having "talks", or more like lectures, with his dogs and telling them they absolutely could not/should not harm any bunnies. There were times when they had chickens and the occasional pig but my grandfather had a fondness in particular to goats. I spent nearly every weekend there and most days during summer vacation preferring that to staying home and playing with all the kids in the neighborhood. I’d call my granddaddy and ask if I could come over and even though my mom would say “They may have other things to do today” his answer was always the same – “Sure little buddy!” I was his corn shucking, bean shelling, tomato picking, dog feeding, goat herding buddy and I loved every minute of it. My grandfather passed away in 1997 but I know he’d be right at home here (and sometimes I think he is) on Wolf Skin Road helping me collect all the pecans that have made their way to the ground.

My Neck of the Woods - Part 1 - The big city of Arnoldsville

I thought I might share with you each week little nuggets about where I live, my neighbors and any other little interesting tid bits that happen, have happened or will happen in "my neck of the woods". But before I introduce you to the neighbors I'll give you a little bit of insight about where we call home. I'm in one of the more rural (and older) counties, Oglethorpe, in the state of Georgia in a tiny little town called Arnoldsville. Population 336. I know our post master by name - Andrea, our mail carrier, Peggy, who has an affinity for my fresh eggs and takes extra special care to be sure my packages get to where they're going =), the county extension agent, Mr. Norman, is one of our neighbors and I think you get the idea.

The county itself was founded in 1793 and named after James Edward Oglethorpe, who as you may know was the founder of the colony of Georgia back in 1733. There are 5 little towns in Oglethorpe county - Arnoldsville, Crawford (our neighboring town which actually has a bank, gas stations, a Chicken Express and my favorite feed store ;), Lexington (the county seat), Maxeys and Stephens. We're about 75 miles east of Atlanta and about 15 miles east of Athens, where Dan commutes to work each day and home of the University of Georgia, where we both graduated college. We have no red lights, no gas stations, no banks. The one little restaurant we did have, Momma's Place, closed down about 8 months ago. We do have a little post office, a volunteer fire department, a few very lovely pre-civil war historic homes (one which happens to be our next door neighbor), lots of lovely scenery and that brand new water tower you see above. If I remember correctly the water tower was erected about a year and a half ago but the pipelines haven't quite made it out to where we are yet. We still use a well for our water. But don't worry - it's electric ;).

Now that you have a bit of background on my neck of the woods I look forward to introducing you to some of the goings on around here in the next few weeks ;).