Roofer Reese

As soon as Thanksgiving was over I decided to take advantage of the unharnessed manpower lounging around in my living room and share the drama of the recent storm.  We found two shingles in the yard plus two more missing from the roof.  Where would I find a volunteer to climb up on the roof and seal it?

I will!  I will!

Of course, my skydiving son was willing to shimmy on up the ladder.  He has no fear of heights.

I mean NO FEAR OF HEIGHTS!

Feels great!  Come on up!

He also has no problems scaring his mother with his crazy antics.

King of the Mountain!

I, on the other hand, have no problems reminding him he is on my insurance policy and as long as we are covering the costs, he will sit down and be careful.

Mom ruins all the fun.

While up on the roof he took pictures of our land.  It is a view I have never seen and don't plan to enjoy in person.  This is our field on the west side of the house.  We recently had it bush-hogged.  I didn't get pictures as promised since the mower arrived and did it while we were gone. We pulled up in the car and it was already mowed.  Country people do things like that.  They seem to trust you to pay the bill.

The treeline in the distance is the end of our land.  On the other side was all open cattle fields when we bought the house in 2004.  Now it is a subdivision.  We have listened to houses being built ever since we moved here.

Turning left is the view of the driveway.  The large bags of mulch beside the car have been sitting waiting for me to spread them since August.  Maybe now that it is almost winter, I will have time to get it done.

This is the front yard and the car below is backed up to the front porch to save steps while unloading.  Since Dustin and Reese will both be moving back home next month (a long story for another day), they brought a huge load of their junk, oh, I mean their stuff home with them. 

My flower bed is under the trees on the other side of the driveway.  When we bought the house, the trees were small.  I never considered the trees would grow big and shade my flower bed.  Now it is hard to decide between shade and flowers.  Do I dig another bed or cut down the trees?

Continuing to turn left and following the driveway is the chicken yard area.  When we first moved to the country we wanted livestock and so we started by raising chickens. Hawks and predators have gotten all of them so the coop is empty now.  We never seemed to have time for goats and cattle...well, at least not yet.

This is our last silver maple tree.  It, along with two others were planted by the previous owners.  High winds have blown the other two down.  We left this one because it was too far away to hit the house.  This year we realized it is tall enough to do some damage.  We might be cutting it down this spring after I try tapping it for maple syrup.

Behind the tree is a fence-row of trees which marks the end of our property.  The other side is a 10-acre vacant field with another subdivision being built next to it. 

This odd-looking brown patch is zoysia grass I planted right after we moved.  The hill was eroding rapidly and we needed something to hold the soil in place.  My Mom has a large patch in her yard so I dug up a bunch of plugs.  It has slowly spread and has stopped the erosion.

This is the back corner of the yard.  Nothing exciting here.

Moving further to the left is the backyard and the strange behemoth thing is Reese's half-built  aquaponics greenhouse.  The tanks held fish and the water was pumped into the vegetable growing beds. The vegetables consumed the fish waste which then cleaned the water for the fish. His vegetables grew faster, were healthier and better tasting than my garden grown produce. No chemicals were needed for anything. When the fish grew large, they were harvested. This is gardening of the future since a small setup in a person's backyard can feed many people. It is Reese's dream to start an aquaponics business but stopped when he was offered a full-time internship. He chose to work and save all he could for investment capital.  He did a good job.

Behind the fence row is our woods.  They extend back about 100 yards.  When we first moved here there was a large forest behind it.  Now they are building subdivisions and there is even a house sitting only a few yards from our back fence.  

This is my garden and the tiny little dot is me digging carrots.

The yard and garden are about 1 1/3 acres. The driveway area is 1 acre in size so we own 12 acres total.

The last thing Reese had to do before he climbed down was to remove our old analog television antenna from off the chimney.  If we had waited a little longer it might be an antique and worth something.  Oh well, we seem to always be a bit behind the times but don't mind it at all. 

I wonder if Mom even knows the difference between analog and digital.