Everything is Big!

When we bought our "country estate" as we have taken to calling our new 5 acre property, we didn't comprehend that everything about it was exponentially larger than our city lot.

Oh, we knew it was bigger - but it's wayyyyyy bigger - the yard, the shrubs, the trees, the distances between things.

One of the first days we were there I took off my jacket during a hot flash, mindlessly put it down and carried on with what I was doing.  Later, when the sun went down and we were relaxing on the back deck, I got chilled and went searching for my jacket.  To the barn - a football field distance from the house - nope, not there, back to the front yard (the football field again), nope not there.  Was it in the trailer, parked beside the barn?  The football field again...you get the picture.  I got the picture - this place is frigging huge! 

And there have been other situations driving the point home....

Watering the front garden meant either - three of our city size garden hoses joined together from the tap at the deck, OR scrambling all the way through the crawl space under the house to turn the water on at the tap on the front yard side of the house.  After a short period of imagining spiders, newts and other real and imagined creepy crawlies that could be under the house, I gathered up three hoses!

Gardening has exploded to a new level.  The shrubs were all quite overgrown when we took over the place at the end of May, so weekends this past month or so have been all about trimming.  Looking back now, we laugh at our first day on the "job" when we rolled over our wheelbarrow, and cut the first few branches off a 10 ft hydrangea.  Ha - wheelbarrow full in less than two minutes.  Bring on the enormous waste disposal bin fortuitously found on side of road, badly caved in on one side.  Chuckles, being Mr. Handyman, heated the plastic and knocked out the dents, thinking this would be a handy vessel at the country estate.  And it is - as a containment device for rubbish destined for our utility trailer, which has proven to be the best garden implement we own.  That and the former hunting buggy, Chuckles Suzuki Sidekick, which has been commandeered as the tow vehicle for the utility trailer as it will go anywhere on the property.  We can now trim bushes all day long and at the end of the day go four-wheeling to the back of the property where we have established a dump pile - of material to be burned when the cool autumn weather arrives. 

We mowed the lawn once by hand, another laughable situation.  Our friend Nick, who lives nearby the country estate, says the neighbors must all realize when city-folk move in at the sound of push mowers starting up!

It only took us the one time - four hours with both of us working at it - one mowing, one weed whacking, to realize that a ride-on was a must have.  So we have a new John Deere mower in the fleet now.

So far we have bought the mower, a good gas weedeater, and a leafblower.  The list of what we still will need keeps on growing!

 

One thing for sure - we won't be bored here, there is always something to do!