Beginnings

Let me introduce you to our little slice of heaven, and what will undoubtedly take most of our time and money from here forward. We purchased 12.5 acres about an hour east of Austin in January of this year, and have been working as many weekends as possible to tame it since. I know this will be a long and exciting (sometimes painful) journey, so I thought this would be the best way to document our progress for both ourselves and our family.

The picture above is our pond, and it is beautiful. I have hopes of making it even more beautiful, but it is going to require much back-breaking work (my poor husband!). The deer come often to drink, and I will one day have a porch to watch them from. Most of our property is woods, with this one pond, but we have about 3 acres that were cleared by the previous owner and require diligent mowing. Hence, we also had to purchase a lawn tractor.

Our grandson loves it, of course! You can see by the fire in the background we have been burning a lot of brush. There is a lot of that to burn, but it will take time. This picture was taken before it got so hot and dry, so future burning might have to wait until Fall when it gets cooler and wetter.

Our plan, after much consideration, is to build a Barndominium. Although they are becoming extremely popular, most people don't know what one is. Let me just keep it simple; it is a metal building/barn with living space inside. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? I thought so too until I did my research. I won't post pictures here of what I found on the internet, but you can Google the term to find out all about it. Besides being more energy efficient than a standard home, they are also more fire resistant. I thought this a plus living in the country surrounded by lots of open land and potential wildfires.

I will leave you with that thought for now, but will post here as much as possible going forward to get caught up.