Changes in lattitude, changes in attitude

 

Tres Colinas-just past where the blacktop ends

Welcome to our blog documenting our move from city jobs and life to farm work and life.  I grew up on a farm in western Kentucky and my wife grew up in south central Texas around farms (spending her pre-teen summers on her grandparent's dairy farm).  While both of us have spent the majority of our adult lives in cities, neither have ever felt they were "home".  So, after lots of discussions, prayer and planning, we purchased fifty acres near Caldwell, TX.  We named our place Tres Colinas (Spanish for three hills as it has three hills split by two spring-fed creeks).
One thousand miles, three states, one time zone, one and a half agricultural growing zones and perhaps a few years back in time are some ways to measure our move from Knoxville, TN to Caldwell, TX.  From my perspective, all of them are positive.  It appears to be Spring in Texas.  I say this with some hesitation as I am not familiar with Texas weather.  In Tennessee (and Kentucky) almost all of the weather comes from the west.  In Texas, I'm told it mostly comes from the south but occasionally from the north and rarely from the east or west but if it does...look out.  Thirty and forty degree temperature changes from morning to mid-afternoon are frequent, so using your heater in the morning and your air conditioner in the afternoon are not signs of schizophrenia.  While there are four seasons (and yes it may be possible to experience all of them in a week or perhaps even a day), I believe that Spring and Fall last about two months each, Winter around one month and the remaining seven months are considered Summer.  I was surprised to see that we had a number of dogwood trees on the farm (a hallmark of Knoxville).  We also have a variety of Texas wildflowers as shown below.

 

As we are in Spring, I've been trying to accomplish some outside cleanup work before it gets too hot and the snakes come out.  My wife is convinced there are poisonous snakes lurking under every bush, leaf pile and anything else they can hide under.  I'm somewhat more skeptical but understand there are copperheads, cottonmouths and timber rattlesnakes around.  As proof that they are getting active, I ran across this copperhead trying to cross our road at the first creek. It was about eighteen inches long which means it has more than enough venom at this time of year to kill a human.  Guess I'll err on the more cautious side when I'm in a "snaky looking area".  I was cleaning some brush from a fence row and found myself working with one eye on the brush and the other looking for snakes.

As our property was unimproved, we had a number of projects to complete before it was liveable.  These included building a road from the county road to the house house, running electrical lines to the house site, digging a water well and building a septic system.  I carefully budgeted the time and cost requirements for each and patiently watched as all of them exceeded both.  I guess this was a lesson in the attitude changes I need to make.  In my work life, I always approached every project with the attitude of getting it done as soon as possible.  The people that do construction type work seem to operate on the attitude of working when they want.  However, at the end of our second week of living on Tres Colinas, all of these amenities are installed and working properly. 

So, we are living comfortably in our fifth-wheel camper on the second hill of the farm.  The next big step is to build a barn.  A house will come later.  Before anyone thinks I talked my wife into this seemingly reverse approach, she readily agreed to it as it will allow us to consolidate all our or personal property on site.         

While there is a lot more to write, I'll leave that for another time and blog installment.  I'll end this one with a picture of our neighbors who when they saw us, walked over and met us at the fence line.