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Urban Mouse, Rural House

~ The joys and challenges of transitioning from city life to life with land.

Urban Mouse, Rural House

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The Horizon

17 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

I’ve been quiet on here for nearly a month. Mainly because I’ve been contemplating some things. I like to blog, and I have so many partial posts–written with no pictures. I’m hoping the new camera will eliminate that, as it is much easier to pop the SD card out of the camera than it is to get the app working on my phone or to download pictures off my phone (a process involving about an hour and 3 rather painstaking steps).

The other issue I have been considering is, now that I have my new camera (and really before that), I have all these extra pictures. I’d go take pictures in the yard and come back with 50 pictures, but only use 5 or 6 of them. The problem was choosing the right ones. The struggle is real, y’all!

Another issue is that I have been attempting to maintain a couple of blogs on different subjects. One for rural living, and the other for planning and being a work-at-home-mom (WAHM). The second hasn’t done much, so it’s semi-retiring. I’ll be taking that content and adding it to a rotation of topics of weekly posts. Yes, weekly is the goal.

And finally, I’ve been contemplating how to add in some recipes. We do a lot of cooking that is absolutely related to our lifestyle. CAT and I were talking one day and I had a revelation. When we lived in the city, we cooked and we were always inspired to cook great dinners. Now that we have 33 acres, soccer, scouts, school, his business obligations, my business obligations, and more, we are less inspired and dinner is mostly about function rather than form. We cook because we have to eat, and the easier the meal, the better. I’ve learned that we don’t have to sacrifice the tasty side of the meal, and I’m sure people can benefit from some of what I’ve figure out.

So, what has all this got to do with a horizon, you ask? Change, my friends. Change is on the horizon. I am in the process of relocating my blog to a new hosting location and reworking it with some surprises in store. Don’t worry, you should see minimal to no difference in the way you receive the blog (email or in your Reader feed), because it’s still powered by WordPress. The type of content will remain, with some new additions in subject matter.

The differences you WILL see:

  1. It will be prettier, because, let’s face it, I’m a girl and I want my blog to be pretty.
  2. More pictures!! On a separate page–yes, pages!!
  3. More streamlined and alive layout. Stagnant is boring, so I’m working on that.
  4. More content (hopefully!), because I hear from good sources that this new program I’m using is amazing for adding content.

Stay tuned. The unveiling is coming, but I’ve been making slow headway in learning this new program. I hit a roadblock, but I think I found the solution! More to come, very soon!

Since I gave you the proverbial horizon, here’s a picture of the actual horizon to enjoy.

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~Mouse

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Rain, Rain, Go Away

20 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

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Tags

rain

It has been an extraordinarily wet summer here. The field has flooded and the river has been up for most of the summer so far. And the rain has just kept coming. Since it has pretty well prevented much progress on any projects around here other than basic mowing and home maintenance, I thought I would just share some pictures.

The last good storm that came through gave me some time to play with the new camera and catch some pretty nice pictures of the storm heading to the Ridge.

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Two ridges over is now mostly masked by rain.

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And completely masked.

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I accidentally ended up with this really cool picture of the rain starting to fall.

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Now the tress on the opposite side of the river are mostly masked by the rain.

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If you ask the kids, this was the biggest problem with the weather. I might have to rethink electronics time.

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Stay dry!

~Mouse

A visit to my childhood

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

For July 4th, CAT and I both had 3-day weekends so we took advantage and headed to Texas. We typically stay with my grandparents when we head that way, and there is always some nostalgia.

These two people were a huge part of my life growing up, especially after we moved to Texas.

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I spent a lot time playing with Grandpa at the park when I was young, and hanging out with him as I got older.

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I spent time wanting and trying to be just like my Grandma, who is an amazing woman, by the way.

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That is the house where the official first car photo happened.

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Even at the longest distance, I spent the better part of 20 years living within an hour of them. Those years were rich with traditions, including many, many Christmas Eves all the way into our kids’ early years.

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Anytime we visit, I smile as my grandparents influence and invest in our kids the way they did with me. Every morning my Grandpa would present the paper for the news article of the day. You can choose one, but if you opt to not choose, then Grandpa picks for you. Cricket enjoyed her article on women’s soccer.

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Grasshopper opted out and was given an article to read, I believe from the Wall Street Journal.

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Growing up, the newspaper article was accompanied by the word of the day. My first word of the day was eclectic, followed by defunct and so many more. Since the essential “Big Red Dictionary” lives at my house now, the kids were exempt.  Yes, the book is a true treasure from my childhood and probably an important part of my writing tendencies today.

Then we have hours upon hours in the same pool where I learned to swim. Here I am in all my childhood awesomeness swimming with my Grandma (this might be from my grandparents first Texas home, but, in all fairness, I couldn’t swim in this picture).

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And here are our kids enjoying swim time.

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And Popsicle break.

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There’s always breakfast making for the crew. Cricket helped Grandma with the bacon and taking egg orders (scrambled or fried). Then Cricket and CAT made the eggs.

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The one huge change in tradition, is that picture taking has moved down the line. Grandma has always taken some pictures and still does, but the primary photographer in our family was always my Grandpa. He was often missing from pictures of events because he was behind the camera, but the photographic evidence of my childhood adventures with them, my brothers, and my cousins is precious.

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This weekend, I was there with my new camera…

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Until the battery died and we figured out that we didn’t bring the charging cord. Good thing we live in the technology age, because we all had phones to take more photos.

While there have been changes, especially the part where we live nearly 7 hours away, the fundamentals remain. That house has always been a sort of home-base for me, and a big part of my roots, which is important. It is my hope that one day Ramblin’ Ridge will be that for our children, our grandchildren and, God willing, our great-grandchildren.

The rest of our weekend included a visit with some friends and their new dog (I think we will have a bird dog sooner rather than later despite CAT’s “objections”), dinner with CAT’s parents and my grandparents, and the FC Dallas soccer game with CAT’s sister and family, complete with an amazing fireworks show.

Of course, I can’t leave you without a cute animal photo. So here is Sophie hanging out a very safe distance from the pool at Grandma’s. As much as she loves swimming in the pond, she had no interest in the splashing or pool water.

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~Mouse

**Note: Photo credits to my Grandparents in addition to what CAT and I took!! This post wouldn’t be possible without all those throwback photos.

Rural Living is Eclectic

23 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

It really is! The last month has been a hodgepodge of just real life living.

I traveled twice for work, taking the kids with me for one trip. Shout out to my Dad and Mum for giving them an amazing week in Orlando while I worked. I did get the fun of that first Disney experience over the weekend before we headed back. The only “thing” missing was CAT, who stayed behind due to work commitments.

The forced smile from Grasshopper pretty much defines the trip of “Hey, smile so I can take your picture. Try again. No really… Take 3. Smile dude! Fine, good enough.” And Cricket’s look by the third or fourth attempt at each shot. Overall it was a lot of fun though.

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Back at home base, our neighbor brought us gallons of cherries that the kids washed and pitted so I could freeze them for cobblers and ice cream later. After pitting them for hours across multiple days using the pinching method, they decided that we need a couple of cherry pitters in time for next year’s harvest. Next up: blackberries!

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The temperamental weather has not done any good as far as the garden goes. We have a few things trying to produce, but most of my second round seeds didn’t make it after rotting from too much rain. That was after a 50% sprouting on the first round. I got a few sugar snap peas off the plants before they withered away.

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Most of the herbs drowned, but I did have a good return on the mint and oregano from last year. I have been clipping and drying them both periodically.

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The very edge of that picture is the ONE salad worth of lettuce that actually came up. The other 5 plants drowned, so no garden fresh lettuce this year. We’ve had a couple of strawberries and I am hoping for a few more this week, now that the bunnies quit stealing my plants. Yes, whole plants went missing.

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Meanwhile, we have been able to get a few projects done around here. Well, mostly done. CAT brought a big storage cabinet home to help manage the stuff in the shop. We put some large casters on it and had quite the adventure getting out of the trailer. But it’s standing. Next up is cleaning and painting.

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Especially the shelves.

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My boys worked hard at getting some rock out on the driveway. It was getting rough in some spots and slippery in the rain in others.

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This was my view, driving the truck as they shoveled the rock out of the trailer.

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In the midst of projects, the dryer decided to stop working. So we did a quick internet search, and we were able to determine the issue. Thankfully, it was a pretty inexpensive and easy fix. So easy, in fact, that I took the dryer back apart, installed the new part, and put it back together by myself.

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All that fuss for that little white conductor. But we can dry clothes now.

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On our last trip to the city, we picked up a ballast for the light in my closet that had not been working well. CAT made that a priority (so good to me!) and got it repaired.

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While he was at it, he fixed the light in the garage that was having the same issues.

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While he worked on that, I started on the new garage door opener. It looked something like this all spread out over the garage floor. Tank is supervising. The opener is together and hanging. We just need to level the door out and hook it all up.

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That pretty much sums up our time since the rain has stopped and we can actually get some things done around here. Oh, and cute kittens, just because. Here are Boots and Blinkin, trying successfully to be adorable.

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Oh, CAT did buy me a new camera, so image quality might improve if I remember to grab it before projects… 🙂

~Mouse

April Showers Bring May Floods

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Like much of the central US, our area has been inundated with higher than normal rainfall. The result is that most of our outdoor projects have been put on hold. It also meant an extended soccer season, which put most of our indoor projects on hold.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve carefully monitored the level of the river. While our house sits on top of a ridge some 80 or 100 feet above the river bed, we do have a field down there adjacent to the river with hunting equipment and a small boat.

A quick drive into town via the dirt roads gives us a pretty solid idea of the river level. Yes, those are tree TOPS touch and partially in the water. And we’re talking big, tall trees along the river bank. That’s also a whole tree floating down the river.

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From the house, we can see the water when the river is up, but still in its banks as it was last week. This weekend, the river has run over the banks in many areas near the house, including some crop fields that we can see. That brown stuff on either side of the center tree is water. The left side of that tree is normally a dry crop field.

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Last week, we went down to the field and pulled the boat out of the creek which was up significantly.We pulled it from the water and tied it to a different tree a little further up.

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Here’s a view of what is normally a barely trickling creek. A week ago it was about 10 feet wide and at least 10 feet deep. At this point, we cannot even get to the creek.

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CAT also wired the hunting tripod near the river to a large tree.

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We were discussing putting out some catfish lines in the creek, but, now that the river is up and the field is flooded, we’re are just hoping our little boat is still where we left it. The tripod now has water half-way up the legs, or about where CAT’s feet are in the picture above, if you can pick it out among the trees and debris at the legs. It’s about center in this picture behind the diagonal tree trunk.

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Here CAT is standing where the end of our field road would be. This is normally still on the downhill slope of the road from the top of the ridge. We didn’t risk walking any further into the water.

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A day later, the water was up another 2 or 3 feet. Unfortunately, it looks like we are expecting more rain over the next week and the corps are planning to release additional water from upstream. It looks like any field projects or river fishing is out of the question for awhile.

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Here’s hoping for drier weather soon!

~Mouse

 

 

 

 

 

Spring on the Ridge

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

daffodil, iris, mower, rural, Spring, tractor

Spring brings new life to the Ridge. It also brings some pretty dramatic weather. Today, we have had torrential downpours, sunshine, and now cloudy, grey skies. Grasshopper took this photo at bus pickup one day when the clouds were particularly dramatic. It looked as though someone had painted the sky.

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I’m sitting at the kitchen table today, catching up here and watching my boys work hard. Last year for Mother’s Day, I received a gift that will give for many years: an apple tree, a cherry tree, and a peach tree. This year, my CAT brought me a white peach, another cherry, and a pear tree to add to the orchard. Today, CAT and Grasshopper are digging holes for the new trees, hopefully before the next round of storms hits us.

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Meanwhile, the rest of our yard has finally sprung, much delayed by significant fluctuations in weather over the last few months. The first signs of Spring around here are the vibrant daffodils. I’m two for two on being out of town when it happens. Last year, we were in Texas and came home to discover them bloomed; this year I was traveling for work.

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We kick off the season with our annual birthday bash as the first shop party since CAT and I share April as a birth month. The party involves shrimp, Crawfish, Texas style BBQ, friends, and lots of laughs. Oh, and cake, of course. Here’s my masterpiece from this year.

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What most people don’t know is that our first spring was full of “surprise” flowers. We had no idea what to expect when we bought the house, other than the previous owner had sporadically planted rather than traditional planned out beds. Next come the irises. They are planted all over the front yard and we have a plethora of colors–yellow, multiple shades of purple, and purple and white (my favorites).

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We also have several peony plants that give us these beauties in multiple shades of pink. The start out very deep pink and slowly fade to a soft, almost white pink.

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Spring is also a time of heavy yard work. While most of the property is left to its own devices, we do keep a large area around the house mowed and some trails mowed down to the ponds for easier walking. During our first Spring here, we discovered many tree stumps and rocks in these areas. With the mower blades. On the riding mower and the tractor shredder. So they were in desperate need of attention. This means pulling the mower into the shop, climbing under, and removing the blades. I volunteered to take the second blade off my mower after watching CAT with the first one.

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The blades were in rough shape. Dull and lots of dings from hitting tree stumps and rocks. I’ve since marked the stumps so I can avoid them in the future.

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CAT went to work with the grinder to get them cleaned up and ready for some much needed mowing.

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While they will get us through this season, we’ll be buying new blades for my little mower next year.

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Then CAT went to work on the shredder. He uses this to maintain our field in the river bottom and to keep some nice walking paths for his lovely wife to use to go fishing at the ponds. This exercise involves using the tractor to lift up the shredder and bracing it on floor jacks to keep it from falling. Tank is helping.

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To be clear, Tank helping involves dropping a tennis ball at CAT’s feet and hoping it will get thrown.

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The shredder didn’t really need sharpening since the tool relies more on speed of the blades and less on sharp edges. CAT made sure the blade arms were loosened up, cleaned some of the grit and build-up out of there, and called it good.

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His and hers mowing equipment. No, we are not a normal couple–no monogrammed towels here.

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Happy Spring!

~Mouse

Being a ‘No’ Parent

03 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

It’s been some time since my last post, but it has been a hectic time. Both Cricket and Grasshopper participated in the fall soccer program, which entails 3 days a week of games and practices for 2 hours each day for the duration of 6 weeks. That means that CAT was busy coaching and I was busy being the administrator.

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We also celebrated a very important birthday in the midst of soccer. Grasshopper is officially a teenager.

We also adopted a new dog, Sophie. She is just over 2 years old and needed a lot of attention–training, spaying (no puppies in this house!), general vetting, flea removal, and just flat out TLC to help her adjust. I am definitely her person.

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Immediately after soccer season, CAT and I began an alternating travel schedule. I traveled for a week. The following week, CAT was gone for part of the week. Then we were both gone for the majority of the week after. And the last week of October our little town held its annual Halloween festival, complete with rides, carnival food, and parades. So we were just flat out busy with family time.

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I’ve since traveled again for work, and hunting season began, taking us to Texas and Western Kansas to fill our freezer for the year. It also means training dogs to track deer.

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That time was not without education, for me. Let’s start with the fact that I work in technology. On one of my journeys, I had the pleasure of spending my lunch with one of our clients, also a parent, named Tim. We avoided the topic of the conference because we were pretty spent on that topic. Instead, we ended up talking about our kids.

During the conversation, Tim labeled himself as a “Yes parent” (YP) and me as a “No parent” (NP) in regard to electronics. As a YP, Tim’s 12-year-old had her own tablet, laptop, and smartphone. She had constant access to information and electronic entertainment. She struggled in school and he struggled with the electronics. She was sending text messages at dinner and was on the phone after bedtime. Even grounding her from the phone was impossible because he had come to rely on it to communicate with her.

As NPs, our children have no cell phones. They share a tablet that belongs to the family. We have a desktop computer that is older, that they share. We have a Wii, but the games are sports and trivia games that require them to move around or think. The Wii is connected to our only television.

We do have DISH, but a package just big enough to get ESPN to watch March Madness and the World Cup (priorities). Anything not rated PG or below is locked and requires a password, which means that the show must be Mouse-approved. Their time on electronics is earned by having good grades, doing chores, and following the rules. They only get 30 minutes a day during the week and must choose what device is most important to them that day. On weekends they may watch morning cartoons, but only until 9. If you sleep until 8:45, tough luck.

Our kids get toys at Christmas and birthdays that encourage outside play, like basketballs and a goal, soccer gear, tether ball, and croquet. They have basically unlimited access to books of all types. We buy books at auctions, and we frequent the local secondhand bookstore. They often get gift cards to bookstores as gifts, which they love.

The discussion with Tim was mostly a comparison. No one was deemed right or wrong. There was no “My parenting is better because…”, and no judgement. I expressed the challenges of being a NP in a world of YPs. The YPs are everywhere and always telling me why our kids should have phones and more electronics, and fewer chores and responsibilities. And their children tell our children how Mom cleans their bedroom and they don’t have chores; they just do whatever they want. That makes it hard to stand your ground.

By the end of the conversation, I was a little more pro-YP. I came home and upgraded the TV rating from Y-7 to PG. Our children still do not have cell phones, but there are times when we loan them one of ours if the situation warrants. CAT carries one for work and one personal, so we have a ‘spare’, especially if we are together. One of Tim’s parting comments was, “I need to be more of a NP. She needs more boundaries and less encouragement. Thank you!” I was pleased to hear that someone agreed with my parenting choices, because, aside from CAT, I generally hear that I’m wrong.

How on earth does this relate to rural versus urban? I’ve been excited to see that fewer children here have phones compared to our previous school. Even at the older ages, the kids are still without smartphones. This is mostly because we see more parents actually with their kids. Middle school parents actually come to soccer practice, and they stay. They take their kids to the grocery or farm supply store. Less kids need phones because their parents already know where they are, because they are together. Our kids are nearly always with us. If they aren’t with us, they are on the school bus or at school, or with a neighbor. They are not alone, wandering the streets.

YP or NP, or somewhere in between, what’s your preference?

And so it begins

08 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

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Tags

family, hello, life, rural

I’m Mouse. Yes, I go by that name in real life, even though it isn’t the one my mom and dad gave me at birth. My husband came up with that pet name for me some time ago, and it has stuck. Especially since his nickname is CAT. We have a 13-year-old boy that goes by Grasshopper, and an 8-year-old girl that goes by Cricket. No, those aren’t their given names.

We are the proud but sometimes weary owners of 33 acres of diverse land in the heart of America. Our property includes ponds, trees of so many types, a ridge, a field, and a river. This is our dream and we are so fortunate to live it, even when it exhausts us. This is our backyard. How can anyone hate this view?

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Great, right? So now you’re asking why on earth I would make time to write about it and why would I share it with the whole world. Easy, I love to write. I even write for a living; it’s just less creative and more technical. I have family from coast to coast in the U.S., a brother in Australia, a sister in England, and another brother in Norway. Inevitably, someone would get forgotten in the email distribution.

More than that, I have a semi-unique outlook having jumped from city living all my life to living in rural America, surrounded by towns of fewer than 10,000 residents. Many city dwellers wistfully pin pictures and collect idealized images of life in the country as picturesque and simple. I thought, ‘sure it can be any more challenging than keeping house in the city and keeping our hunting lease.’ Reality check! It’s tough work! But we have fun toys.

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We love it, and we want to share our perspectives with people in the same boat as us, with people that are thinking about jumping into this life, and with people that want to live this life vicariously. Our posts will include everything from home renovation adventures, building things, life with kids, maintaining the property, livestock and other farm animals, and so much more. It’s meant to capture life as we know it. We hope that you will enjoy our adventures and share some of your own with us in the comments.

~Mouse

Just Getting Started

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by urbanmouse1 in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Welcome to Urban Mouse, Rural House!

I’m just getting started, but I hope you will come back to see how our front yard went from this: Image

to this:

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I plan to include everything from learning the ropes through everyday life and adjusting from our city life to digging back in time as related to living rurally.

Please check back soon.

~Mouse

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  • New Adventures
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  • A visit to my childhood

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