changes and reality

Another farm is up for sale in our neighborhood. Funny thing is, it hasn't been used as a farm in many, many years, and yet I still think of it as a farm.

I truly understand the hows and whys of such things. I know about the taxes, the upkeep, and the amount of time involved in maintaining a small place (and can't imagine what it would be to do 12x the amount I do now). I know that for such places to remain a farm, someone must be willing to actually...farm.  And most Americans today do not have a love for the soil and a love for plants or farm animals, much less a desire for long, hot, hard working hours with a wild card called nature that can upend it all. So even if I don't like it, I do understand that at some point, farms must be sold, and when that happens, they will grow a development instead of crops.

But what bugs me beyond belief is that there is an old house with lots of character and charm, that would make an awesome home for a small family, that will be torn down. Evidently farm houses are not desirable to developers. Just for once, I'd love to see a developer come in, and build a development around a farm house, leaving a reminder that this area was once a working farm. Smaller houses, mixed with bigger houses, and even some barn-style sheds built on some of the properties. A throwback tribute to the tenant farmers who lived on the land but didn't own it, but without whom the crops would never be planted or harvested. One or two small apartment (as in one or two story) complexes as a modern day reminder of all the migrant workers who keep American in food. (Just google the story of GA and migrant workers...when the economy crashed and people headed back to Mexico, crops were rotting in the field because no American workers would do such hard work. Most Americans quit the job on day two, if they showed up for day two.) You could add a nice house or two for people who like big houses, in memory of the rare plantations, as a way of making a profit, but let most of the houses be smaller, open houses, like the true farm houses. You know, where you're not sure what the purpose of the room was when you walk into the empty house, because the rooms were non-descript so they could be interchangeable. Not that many kids? You've got an office, or a parlor (living room or den, we call them now), or even a library. Have a lot of kids? No problem. Move furniture around, and it's a bedroom. They didn't decorate in those days like we do now. That was for rich, frivolous people. And the kitchen? It's big enough to do farm things...like canning and processing food, with plenty of cabinets for storage. And the porch that connects to the kitchen...ideal for shucking corn or shelling beans and not making a mess in the house. It wouldn't be wanted by today's standards. I get that. This is probably why I could never make a living as a developer. My ideas would not match today's standards at all.

And as much as I hate to see it go, we have a house that works for us and that we've spent hours upon hours working to get it as we want (the yard, not so much the house). Other than the historical aspect of this old house, there's no reason to change the set-up we have. It's not realistic or practical.

I know that change must come. It's inevitable, really. But there's a small part of me that cringes and whispers "NO!"

new neighbors

Well, the picture usually posted on the tax portion of the county website has been deleted, so I only have the new picture. But the old version of this house was red brick, and very small. Our new neighbors (the daughter of the original owners) have upgraded it quite a bit, and moved in yesterday. Welcome to the 'hood Cindy and Earl!

happenings

These pics are all from last week, and have all changed radically since then, but they'll just have to do for now.

 

House going up across the street.

PawPaw tree is coming back to life after the main shoot died last fall! :)

The two Rhode Island Reds and an Ameraucauna. The Welsummer is bottom left.

Two goslings...three more eggs to go.
(All thanks to Buster, who keeps raiding the nests and
bringing us the eggs...the ones he doesn't eat, that is.)

And my small camera that died a few months ago now has a new SD card, so hopefully I'll be able to post new pics more often. Despite the turmoil at home with my cousin's death and Mom's health, there's a LOT happening here!

fun...funny houses

 We saw the above house in Pittsboro while on our way to the mountains. It was the strangest house I've ever seen. Evidently this isn't a modification, for Bobby remembers thinking it funny as a child. Evidently a governor lived here at one point. I think the sign said it's now a Masonic lodge. And if seeing one funny house wasn't enough, the latest issue of This Old House had a link to their website that had several galleries of funny (or strange houses). Here's my favorites from their collection:

 Szymbark, Poland  This just makes me laugh, and I would love to visit this house in person. Created by a designer who wanted to demonstrate "wrong-doings against humanity".  Visitors have stood in line for as long as 6 hours to tour the house, and many come out feeling "sea-sick".  

 Kalambaka, Greece...This 1,000 foot cliff drop has housed monastaries since the 11th century. Six of them are open to the public, "assuming, of course, that the public has the fortitude to make the climb."  Can you imagine the view? Being scared of heights, I could never, ever live there, but I have to admit it's both impressive and incredible!

 Margate, NJ..."Lucy" can be seen 8 miles away and was created by a developer as a way of luring people to the subdivision.  Yes, you read that correctly. As a kid, I would have BEGGED my parents to not only buy this house, but I would have also found it quite cool to even live nearby. Now? Not quite so much.

 Glendora, New Jersey  Built in the 1940's this was supposed to be one of many "cookie jar" houses. The others were never built, and the builder admitted the circular design made the house to furnish. If I were a carpenter, I would be tempted to tackle the project of creating round room furniture just for the sake of doing it. However, I have to admit I think more of a pot-bellied stove than a cookie jar when I see this. Perhaps if it were brown stucco with darker brown stones thrown in periodically I might think cookie. 

 West Creek, New Jersey  No one knows why this house has a chair on top, though it has fueled countless urban legends.

 Cappadocia, Turkey  Carved out of volcanic rocks, these holes were used as early as the 7th century by early Christians escaping persecution, They are presently used by Turkish farmers who have upgraded the dwelling places into more traditional homes. Some of these farm-houses have ten floors!

 Wadsworth, Illinois  It's one thing to be fascinated by a culture or nation, but this is just too much! Originally built in the 1970s, this gold-plated home with statues is now behind iron bars and gates.  One must wonder if the designer forsaw the problem such a lavish decoration would cause in times of poor economy. Wonder what it's worth today?

Alnwick, United Kingdom  This 6,000-square-foot treehouse was commissioned by a duchess who read that 1/3 of British kids had never climbed a tree. It has a restaurant, educational facilities, rope bridges and get this: it's wheelchair accessible! Personally, I think the kids would learn a whole lot more if they were given scraps and had to build their own tree houses.

 Klagenfurt, Austria... This dude has a desire to drive Sara Mincy crazy. :) Reading that blue is a calming color and has healing and creative side-effects, the owner painted both the outside AND the inside of his house ONE SHADE of blue. He thought it was great. It seemed to have a non-calming and non-creative effect on his neighbors, though. As much as I dislike homeowner's associations, something like this might make me consider the value of such a group.

 Simi Valley, California  For 25 years the owner of this house collected bottles and has totally sided her house with bottles. Not sure what it does for insulation, but it is certainly unique.

 Cottonwood, Idaho  I like beagles; I like woodcarvings, but a beagle wood-carved inn?  Again, as a kid I would have been thrilled to stay in something like this, but now, not so sure. The owners, wood-carvers who financed this in 1997 through the sales of their woodcarvings, have two such inns (you can see the second in the background of the picture) and have beagle carvings throughout the inn. (some of them are shown on the website).  

 Hillsborough, California Another house derisively named by neighbors, the "Flinstone House" was created by pouring cement over nautical balloons. The second owners painted it orange, (it was the normal cement color) making neighbors even more upset. It's certainly a landmark.

 Wales, United Kingdom   The man who created this house was simply trying to be efficient, organic, and use natural materials. He's not the least upset that people call it a "hobbit house".  Personally, I think it's kind of cute and would live there.

 Suffolk, London  Created in the 1920's to cover up an ugly water tower, the structure remained even after the town replaced its water structure. It's now an inn. Creative, indeed. I think this is as cool as the towns who put something creative on their water towers (like a peach, or baseball) as opposed to an old grey tank with the town's name.

 La Jolla, California  This is what remains of the original "house". The owner instructed the builder to come up with a futuristic-looking, earthquake-proof house in the 1950s.  Evidently their used to be a house dwelling at the top of a cliff and a tram that came down the hill to this part by the ocean, but this section is all that remains now. For some reason it reminds me of Star Wars. Perhaps this where some of the Star Wars designs originated?

 Kailua Kona, Hawaii... Ever heard of McCormick spices? One of the company owners commissioned this house with the request for something "as eccentric as she was".  Neighbors derisively call it "the onion house". It is currently available for vacation rentals. I think I'll pass.

 Isla Mujeres, Mexico  Also available for vacation rentals, this house was created in 1997, and they say all the fixtures inside (sink faucets, etc) resemble seashells. This is a house I would rent for vacation if it were closer and cheap. 

Netherlands...And this is just ugly. Created out of totally recyclable products (mainly old tires) it may save the environment but does absolutely nothing for the soul, in my not so humble opinion.


When all is said and down, there's no place like home. During my vagabond years, I used to laughingly say that home was wherever I unpacked my suitcase for longer than 2 weeks. I suppose home truly is where you are and what you make it, but I have to admit that some of these places I would NOT want to live inside!

oh la la!

This morning we went with Mrs. Bryan to an estate sale in Spring Hope, NC. All the items listed I had been interested in purchasing sold before we got there, but we thoroughly enjoyed looking around both the house and the property. If we didn't have a place to live, or if this place were in Walker County, AL or in the mountains, we would seriously consider purchasing the place. The house is a log cabin, with the stair railings and upstairs door frames made from tree trunks and limbs. Every room had either a built in bookcase or corner cabinet (and I love both of those things!) and it had a ramp and level doorway on the first floor! Behind the house was an old barn that had once been a chicken house, a shed that had a small pen and two dog houses attached, and an old cow barn/shelter. The cellar/spacing under the house needed a little work, as did the sheds, (okay, and probably the house, too) but it was an absolutely gorgeous place. I don't think my mother-in-law would like living there, but she commented more than once that her eldest and youngest daughter would absolutely love it!
The only down-sides to the house were the limited wall outlets and light fixture attachments (which is why every single room had multiple candles, candle holders, and lanterns for sale! :)
As much as I've always dreamed of taking an old home and fixing it up to live in, and even though this house is very close to livable as is, the reality is we have a home that demands a fair amount of my time and energy. Not to mention that we happen to like the location where we currently are. But if Bobby retired tomorrow and wanted to move, this would be a really cool place to go. And maybe by the time we got it fixed up, we could flip it and head to AL.
Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

the important things in life

This past week during a shopping trip at Target, I passed an aisle that had children's stepstools, and it made me laugh.

During the first week we had our little friends staying with us, they were flabbergasted to discover that Mrs. Monica was missing some very important household items. One was a stepstool. "You mean you don't have one AT ALL? Then HOW are we to brush our teeth or go to the potty?" We improvised with some little chairs I have. It didn't turn out to be the safest route, but it worked for the time.

The second week, I was informed I needed a new refrigerator. Ours makes funny noises sometimes, so I fearfully asked "Why?" I get another one of those "Don't you know anything this is SOOO obvious" looks with the response "Refrigerators are supposed to have a place for ice and water on the front. If you had that we could get our own drinks without asking."

It's funny, but they were the second family this summer to inform me we needed a "modern" refrigerator. I had bought a crushed ice machine with a coupon I had at Kohl's this summer, and a family member thought that was crazy. Why buy another gadget when I could just update my refrigerator with one that did the same thing? Hmmm....a $90 ice machine with a coupon that only cost me $50, or a $1,400 (or more) appliance....that one wasn't hard for me to figure.

But it is interesting the things we grow accustomed to in our households and miss when we are elsewhere. I'm guilty of taking our window-filled house for granted until I visit somewhere else and feel almost trapped with so little light.

I think when people are in different surroundings and what is for them, unusual circumstances, people make do with what is there. But I find it interesting that the necessities we tend to take for granted, but it's the tiny luxuries (whether internet or stepstools) we're accustomed to that tend to throw us for a loop when we must do without.

houses, part 3

House/apartment #11:
My first apartment in China was, by Chinese standards, luxurious. Maybe one day I'll have time to scan and post pictures. The entire apartment would fit in my living room now. We had an entryway, a kitchen with a balcony, a living room with a balcony, a bathroom with a real western toilet, a bathtub (but only an electric shower for the water supply), and two bedrooms. My bedroom was the smaller of the two since I was the junior teacher. It was rectangular shaped, and we were on the fourth floor. Our male teachers were on the third floor directly below us, and the foreign affairs director was directly above us. They said that way we girls would be safe. The numbers across from us were a little scared of foreigners, and many of the children took accordian lessons, providing us with many whaling exercises every night. Right outside my roommate's window was a campus loudspeaker which gave the 6am wake up call for students, news, and exercise orders (that's how I learned to count to 8 in Chinese!), noon annoucements and news, and 6pm news, as well as daycare music for the campus daycare next door. I always felt guilty that I lived in such a "big" apartment. My single Chinese colleagues where next door in a dorm type setting. They were thankful to only have four teachers to a room and a community kitchen to cook in on each floor. The students were eight to a room, community bathroom, and cafeteria for meals.
Rooms/Apartments # 12&13: I left the Northwest of China and headed Northeast for a year of language school. Due to the last minute arrangements, I was the only single female on my dorm floor. I had the first room on the first floor on the right, and we had HOT running water 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night! That was a BIG plus after only having undrinkable cold water the year before. Still had to boil drinking water, but it was so nice to have a real, steaming hot shower. Down the hallway was our community kitchen and laundry room, next door to the two American families. Everyone else on our floor was either Japanese or Korean boys, which was often a pain because they would get loud when they drank. In between semesters, the international students director came to us saying he had an option for us to consider. A friend of his had a promotion at work (meaning he got an apartment), but to save money he and his wife were going to continue living with his parents and rent the apartment out. Another student and I took it, thinking it would help our Chinese to be living in the community. It was the nicest apartment I had in China. The water didn't always make it up to our floor, and some days we didn't get hot water, but I no longer had to contend with earthworms crawling up the drain and the noise of dorm life.
Apartment #14: Back to Yinchuan for the next school year. The year I was in language school the teachers had all moved down an entryway (meaning our apartments were at the corner of the building). Each apartment was smaller than before, maybe half the size, but we each had our own apartment, which I loved. I was on the top floor, and on days when I was homesick I would sit out on the balcony and watch the daycare kids. Kids are the same anywhere. It made things seem less strange. I actually have a video of this apartment, as this is the apartment I was living in when Bobby and his sister and brother-in-law came to visit. They had a video camera so were able to make a quick shot for my parents to see. I thought if Mom could see things weren't that bad she would relax about where I was. It had the opposite effect. I never told her that wasn't my 2nd best apartment in China.
Apartment #15: a one bedroom, dirty carpeted place across from Garner High School. It met my needs, and I loved having access to the apartment laundry facilities across the street. I moved out of this apartment 13 months later, the same week I got married.
House #16: 8483 Bryan Rd. We joke about moving, but I don't envy anyone who has to pack and move. I know there will come a time when it will happen, but Lord willing, I'm very thankful that it won't be any time soon.

houses, part 2

House #6 is actually not a house at all but dorm rooms in Polston Hall at Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville, TN. Years one and two were on second floor, 3rd year on first floor, and 4th year back on second. The door swings open and the first thing that catches your eye is the HUGE chest of drawers backed against a long desk with bookcase that divides the room in two. There's just enough space to pull out a chair and sit down before you hit the beds that line the wall. The beds were like day beds, but with a big covered shelf (covered with either 70's green or red vinyl, no less). To sleep you pulled the mattress out from under the shelf (like you'd pull out a sofa bed) and you'd have a twin-sized mattress. Each side has a closet with sliding wooden veneers for doors. The far side of the room had the air condition/heating unit and only window; the side near the door had the bars for hanging towels. Between this area was the bathroom door, which also connected you to another room. You could fit three people in their at one time (one in the shower, one on the toilet, and another at the sink) but if you tried to squeeze a fourth you were sardines. Let's just say I benefited greatly from growing up in a large family having to share a room with sisters. Girls from homes where they had their own rooms growing up really had a tough time adjusting.

House #7: Summer of 1993. This was actually a 6 week stint in Ivory Coast, West Africa as part of my missions degree. Ten boys and four girls joined our missions professor and lived in a house. Our bed frames were cement blocks holding a wooden board, followed by a twin size mattress. We actually paid for our bedding, and they were donated to the Bible Institute there after we left. The only hot water was what we boiled, and thankfully we did have a fan in our room, which the four of us girls shared. The weekends we traveled we stayed with various missionaries, including one place with no electricity. We got to visit adobe (mud brick) houses and straw huts, but thankfully we didn't stay in either one.

Note there's no such thing as home improvement loans (you do what you can as you can - the roof); the rain barrels was the "convenient" source of water, and the berries drying on the door step was their pantry I guess you could say.

Down the road from our "house" where we bought our daily bread and other grocery items as needed.

Straw huts require rethatching with fresh straw every three-five years. Notice the yard broom propped up against the house. Cooking would be done outside, as would most activities.

In many ways I'm thankful for this summer. It made rural China seem modern compared to this, and also made me appreciate (and saddened) at just how rich and spoiled I really am.

House #8 was actually the basement of an elderly Church of Christ lady who rented to FWBBC students. Jobs were scarce in my hometown, and Nashville not only abounded in jobs, but they paid a whole lot better as well. So for the summer of '94 I joined two other girls in renting this one bedroom space, again with 70's lime green and red. We rotated sleeping positions every two weeks between sharing the double bed and the couch. Between 40 hours a week at Taco Bell and 16-20 hours a week babysitting, I not only earned enough to pay basic living costs but also covered 1/2 off the next semester's upcoming school bill. More importantly, I had my first taste of independence and found it EXTREMELY hard to return to the dorm that fall. My senior year was probably the hardest of dorm living. I so missed having my own tiny kitchen and being able to invite friends from church over for a meal. And the place was so tiny there was almost no housework!

Summer of 1995: Houses 9, 10, and 11 - After graduation in May, I loaded up my little red Ford and headed back to Sweet Home Alabama, only to pack up Mom and Dad from the Cordova parsonage and help them move to Orangeburg, South Carolina. The mission church plant there helped provide them with a rented house. The month I was there we never fully unpacked. All I can say about that house is that it was white, one street over from a rough neighborhood, and had tons of bookcases in "my bedroom." The week of my departure to California for China training, I helped Mom and Dad move into another house which they bought. My last view of that house that summer was pulling up carpet and staples from the hardwood floors. From there I went to living out of a suitcase in a dorm room for three weeks, followed by the week long trip of getting to Yinchuan, Ningxia where I shared an apartment with a teammate for the year. I guess I could say 1995 was the year I lived out of boxes and suitcases.

really cool

A week or so ago we stopped at Mrs. Bryan's house so Bobby could help her with some things. After a few minutes, I quickly realized what was going to be "just a little bit" was going to take quite a while, so I headed to the computer room and surfed the net - something I don't get to do very often. While there, I found the coolest web site.

http://www.logstairs.com/

For those who don't know me very well, I like bears. My favorite staircase on this site has bear pawprints carved into each step. How original! But I like all the staircases this company has done, as well.

One of my crazy idiosyncrasies is that while I hate steps and heights, I LOVE wooden staircases. At the Governor's Mansion in Raleigh the staircase is wooden with the most intricate carved details in the wood. When we went to BJU's art museum a few years ago, my favorite thing out of the whole museum was pieces of old church furniture: a choir railing, pulpit, chair, etc - and they all had beautiful carvings. So if you get bored and want to check out one of my many definitions for beautiful, this website is it.