Mike’s To-Do List…Part 1
Paint the interior of the house.
Buy a riding lawnmower.
Price tractors…and then price selling one of our children to buy one.
Replace locks.
Build new gate for dog pen.
Fix the two big holes in the barn walls.
Fence the (um, kind of large) back yard.
Buy cattle gate for driveway.
Try to catch the white dog that keeps rattling things outside the house every night so I can’t sleep.
Throw out debris in house and barn.
Find some nice person to come haul off those pallets from the barn–or have a giant bonfire.
Learn how to not set your pastures on fire while having a giant bonfire.
When we first looked at the property I noticed a sweet little (what I thought was a) paddock right next to the barn with honeysuckle vines growing on the fence. “What a cute little area,” I said excitedly to Mike. “Maybe we can fix it up and put some animals in there.” Turns out, the place is already inhabited. “Buster,” who cuts our hay fields (more on him later), has informed us that the area is the Smith’s old pet cemetery. “They buried all their animals in there,” Buster said. “In fact, when Mr. Smith’s wife Anita died, I think they spread her ashes in there, too.”
