Tag Archives: country-living

We’ve been here now exactly 19 days and it’s already been quite the adventure. We’re starting to make new friends, finding our farmers and markets, yep we have both close by. In fact, we recently learned that we can walk, yep, walk to The Dam Ranch (only .6mi from our house). They have fresh eggs, chickens, goats milk and cheese. We also visited the Miakka Farmers’s Market this past Saturday. It’s located at the Crowley Museum and Nature Center.

It’s so wonderfully peaceful out here, a little creepy too. We love to camp, primitively, so we’re not strangers to the dark, the crickets, critters moving in the trees, bugs, etc. But it’s something about having so much space, and it’s sooooo dark. I love it though, and I’m sure we’ll get used to this. We’re on a two-lane country road and our neighbors are only about 2ish acres away from us on two sides, a bit further to the rear of the house. It’s like we have our own nature park really. So many beautiful old Florida oak trees with hanging moss. The moss glows in the late afternoon as the sun shines through it, beautiful!

Then there’s the spiders. We have many banana spider friends, AKA Golden Orb Weavers. Yes, they do weave a golden orb, it shines in the light a glorious yellow hue. We had a Wolf Spider stop by the other evening. We, well PFMan, gently removed him from the house against his wishes. I’m usually the bug remover, but I’m trying to break PFMan in a bit. We had our friends over the other day and the kids found a Jumping Spider that had placed his web in a poor location, the walkway from the house to the walled garden. Just glad it didn’t jump on me while removing his web. I like spiders, but I don’t want them on me.

The Verizon man found a Gopher Tortoise in the yard behind the studio. Watching Lilith, our Corgi/Beagle mix, was loads of laughs as she saw the tortoise for the first time. She had no idea what she was looking at and really wanted to investigate. Poor little tortoise probably just wanted her to shut up. PFMan witnessed a family of opossums in the yard a couple of nights ago. Did I mention we pass soooo many moos and naaaas to and from our home. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of seeing those cows grazing. Love seeing the mamas with the babies. I haven’t gotten my camera out yet to capture them or the horses yet, but you can bet I will soon! For now I’ve just taken tons around the house.

Our dog Bear is not the Country dog, having already sprained her ankle, gotten into a Spur field (covered!) and has gotten her neck stuck in the gate leading to the pasture. That was fun, NOT! Everyone is still alive!! We’ll continue our adventure, we still have many boxes to empty and have been selling and buying furniture as needed. So it’s coming along.

Peace & enjoy the images:-)!

Bear, before spurs:-)

We had our first ‘living in the wild’ experience today. Our dog Bear got into some sand spurs. Actually, it was more then some, it was A LOT! It was the first storm since we moved in last Friday and the kids and I were outside with the pups while it was still drizzling. I had my camera in hand, they were running around the property on their new walkie talkies (they arrived earlier today in the mail). I was taking tons of pictures of our friends the banana and orchard spiders and of course our kitties, who were wandering the yard for the first time. Suddenly the dogs were gone, we couldn’t locate them for about 15 minutes, it had started to storm and thunder again. Then out of the wild, the fern and weed covered wild area between the house and front gate, Lilith comes running, then Bear shortly behind her. Only Bear was COVERED with sand spurs. There must have been 100+ easy. She’s a chow mix, longer hair (luckily she had been groomed not too long ago, so it was shorter than normal). Anyway, with the help of scissors, tweezers and a metal prong pet brush, oh and about 30 minutes, I managed to get them all off. UGH! Then we took a shower together:-).

Day done, Peace!

Me!

Hi there. Well, we’re back from our month long adventure, and of course there is new and exciting news to share. Remember how we’re supposed to be simplifying, minimalizing? Well, we still are, but…. While in N. California, (PFMan and I went out there for 9 days alone!! more to come on that soon), we visited with a friend who moved out there recently from FL. Her house here in Bradenton is up for rent. I should mention it’s on 7+ acres, with the main house, another house-like structure with 2000 sq. ft. and horse stables, but did I mention the 7+ acres:-). So it’s ours!! Yes, it’s official, we move mid Sept. We have to keep our wits about us, you know the old adage You Fill the Space you Have, makes us a bit nervous. We’ll have a total of 3700 sq. ft. with the two structures. The 2nd structure will be my new photography studio, so that to me is simplifying at it’s best, no more driving to work, no more baby sitters, the kids can stay at the main house while I’m shooting. We are surrounded by farms, veggie and dairy, u-picks, they picks, etc. So excited, and we’ll have our own garden as well too!

Since we can’t move out of state just yet this to me is a way to compromise our living, get the more rural lifestyle we’re looking for just without the mountains right now.

Ciao!