This is a fun thread! Thanks for starting it miss kitty. It's great to see what everybody else is doing on their places. I've been lurking for months, unable to log on and put in my own 2 cents worth. Very frustrating. Recently got a new internet security program and - voila - here I am! My hubby and I have 16 acres in central Texas. We have a live creek with a swimming hole, lots of 100-150 year old oak trees, and plenty of field as well as old rock wall areas we leave overgrown for the wildlife. My mom lives with us in a m-i-l apartment. We have 4 dogs, 3 cats and 11 chickens, so far. We moved into the barn and started builing the house here 3 years ago, having already owned the property for 6 years prior. (For six looong years we journeyed out from the city every single week-end and vacation to clear land, build the barn, dig the well, bring in electricity, etc.) It was all worth it once we got installed here permanently! I raise a big organic garden and can, dry and freeze so much stuff that we're starting feel pretty self-sufficient veggie-wise. The produce aisle at the grocery doesn't see much of me any more. And the home-canned soups, salsas, pasta sauces, etc. are SO much tastier! We got our 10 Rhode Island Red hens and one surprise bonus Silver Spangled Hamburg roo last spring. On a friend's advice I ordered more chicks than I needed because some would "inevitably not make it to maturity." Guess what? I didn't lose a single bird and now have a surplus of eggs! I get 9 or 10 a day, every day. We like to do everything ourselves and use materials we have at hand, so we built a stone henhouse under the pole barn, with a large covered run and optional garden access. Neighbors immediately dubbed it Hen Hilton and declared that if a tornado comes they'll evict our chickens and move into it themselves. (Us city-transplants provide plenty of wholesome amusement for our wonderfully helpful neighbors!) We planned on getting a heifer and producing offspring for the freezer, but gave up on that idea when we found ourselves unable to even slay the mean rooster! We have neighbors who raise their beefers naturally, so we'll just buy one from them to send to the butcher after we purchase a third freezer. No way I could raise a baby, then eat it. My meat has gotta be more anonymous, I guess. We would like to put some mini donkeys out in the pasture, but fear our large, city-raised dogs would run them to death (or get kicked in the head). Guess maybe we'll wait until the old pack is gradually replaced by a country-born-and-bred bunch. None of our current pals are terribly young! No rush. We are lucky to have a wonderful old pecan tree that some long-past resident of this place lovingly grafted and tended. Every other year it gives us more huge nuts than our entire extended family can use in 2 years. This winter I planted some apple trees, an apricot, and a blackberry patch. Two of the many fig trees I planted 5 years ago are finally looking like maybe they'll make something of themselves this year. And my vet gave me 3 pommegranet (sp?) cuttings that I have high hopes for if they're still alive come spring. His trees are awesome, but it can be difficult to nurse the cuttings thru the winter in pots. We also have mustang grapes growing wild - despite our best efforts to control their progress! Basically, I plant anything I can get for free and see if I can get it to thrive. Some experiments have worked better than others and it's all a learning experience. At least I have fun. I'm fortunate to be able to stay home and tend "the farm," look after my mom, etc. My work here contributes enough to the support of the household that my salary paled in comparison. DH hopes to retire in a few more years and become a full-time country dude. As it is he just works himself to death evenings and week-ends. He is finally easing up on his concerns about the klutzy wife maiming herself and teaching me how to operate the tractors, so I can take some of the burden off him. We would love to keep bees, but worry about the killer bee infiltration in Texas. Anybody have any words of wisdom on that subject? pam

I'm getting in here a bit late. I'm in Spanish Springs, not quite sure if we're actually Sparks now, the city limits have been inching toward us for some time. I don't do raised beds, did years ago and when DH moved them, but didn't put them back up LOL, I gave up. This year we have our usual lots of tomatoes, so far one lonely bell pepper, some cilantro and chives, sunflowers and chard. That's it. We have so many quail and bunnies in and out of the yard everything has to be caged or else it's eaten. Even then, last year I would go out and find quail sitting on top of the tomato cages eating every leaf (and later some of the fruit) they could reach. We have our old fruit trees, but living out here we've accepted the fact that actually ending up with any fruit is a nice suprise. Last year was bad, but the year before we had lots of huge peaches. Some years we get some nice little plums, and if we're lucky we get a handful of apricots. I really don't garden that much, but I love my patio pots and my tomatoes. We always start our tomatoes from seed, and put them out in Wall O'Waters. Just before this heat spell we're in, we uncovered them. Funny as we had a touch of frost damage just a couple of weeks before, the tops of two of my Early Girls froze. All the tomatoes look OK now, we have little fruit on the Yellow Currant but yesterday I didn't see any other tomato with fruit set on yet. Some years I can get tomatoes in June, this year I'll get at least the Yellow Currants by early June. We also have a little fish pond at the patio, I do a little water gardening, cat tails, mint, and water lilies that come back up every year. Sometimes I buy a bog plant but I don't have much luck keeping them over the winter. Oh, we also have lots of hen and chicks. I like to have them in pots with other things, right now I have them with petunias, daisies, chives (which are blooming and gorgeous right now), and we also have several potted clematis, three of them blooming right now.

marciab10, we just got back our 2nd round of comments this afternoon, all from the Building Dept. (Engineering? PASSED! Planning? PASSED!) There are 26 comments to address and unfortunately, a lot of those comments are simple things that were overlooked due to the fact that our designer does not seem to be very detail-oriented and he did not properly address them the first time. I'm going to vent a little here and just say that he better not take 4 WEEKS to get these comments addressed like he just did this last time...or else...well, I don't want to go there yet. ANYWAY, on to happy thoughts...happykate, thank you and just looking at your view again somehow seemed to calm me instantly! :) sandyponder, I love your window color! They look very similar to the one I picked out called "ICI Brown" by Sierra Pacific Windows. I think ours will have more of a brown tone, but they look a lot alike otherwise. nhkate, I can almost smell the nature just by looking at your wonderful view! Thanks for posting those photos and I can totally understand how they really don't the "real thing" justice...but I enjoyed them anyway!

slc2053- The picture you saw made it look like the fridge was in the other corner, but it's not. My kitchen is very small and I can show it to you in the 3 photos below. The new kitchen will have the same layout with only a few minor changes. We are shifting the sink a few inches to the left, shifting the stove a few inches to the left, and adding a wider base cab to the right of the stove and adding a wall cab above it. Between the stove and the pantry, there is an opening leading to the dining room. The other picture you saw did not show this opening or the pantry.