Catching Up - Fall 24

We have been retired and living in our rural Missouri home for 22 years now. We've settled into a comfortable life. Not much can bother us out here in our woods. Except for an occasional thunder storm, it is quiet and peaceful. As might be expected, we do suffer some of those common senior citizen medical issues. Faith has been through a couple bouts of cancer but appears clear of that now. Unfortunately the treatment to get rid of the cancers have worn her down but she is getting along OK.

So, what has changed?

Trees around the house have filled out, providing cool shade in the summer.

As you can see in this photo, our trees have grown. The limbs and leaves are still not so thick we don't have a great view from our rocking chairs on the porch. The additional shade does help keep us a little cooler in the summer. There is a slight negative aspect to this: leaves in the fall. At the end of summer all those leaves cover the ground. There are a LOT of leaves. It has become a big job clearing those leaves off the lawns and the driveway. (Oh well, that's rural life.)

A decade or so before we bought this property it was logged and brush hogged. The logging operation removed most of the loggable trees while leaving the rest standing. Those remaining large trees were the bent and leaning ones. That left 'artistic' looking tall trees and dense tree sapling brush. When we first moved here, we could see only a few yards in any direction through all the low foliage.

As the years have progressed, competition between the smaller trees for sunlight and soil has been like a slow motion arborial bar fight. What was 'brush' thinned out and grew. The original tall trees grew bigger and broader. Eventually little sunlight was making it to ground level due to the dense tree crown leafage. The combination of low light level and continued heavy fall leaf layer on the ground has limited new tree sapling germination and growth. We can now often see 100 yards or more through the woods, even during the summer.

Outside the basement.

This view of the basement side of the house is has turned out to be seen by few visitors. From the driveway side, the house looks like an ordinary one story structure. This side is completely hidden. Our 'Walk Out' basement, as it is known in this part of the country, constitues a full floor of furnished living space including bedroom, bathroom, store rooms, and a large hobby and intertainment area. Outside the basement is a quiet area with firewood storage for the wooodstove and a flower potting table. It's relaxing to just hang out here.

The view out the basement windows varies through the year.

While we have occasional snow and ice storms as well as seriously hot spells, we do enjoy the season changes. The photos above show the view from my rocking chair near the woodstove. Here in the Ozarks weather varies quite a lot from day to day and week to week. One week we had days with mornings five and ten degrees below zero and highs in the mid teens. The next week we had mornings around fourty degrees and afternoons about seventy. It's just part of the Ozarks package. We get weather out of Canada, from the west coast, and Gulf fighting it out over us. It keeps things interesting.

Looking over to the barbeque pit area you saw through the basement window photos above.

Of course, I have to drop in a couple summer photos. I've tried to maintain a bit of a wild/natural look around the house. That is not very hard to do as it is mainly just not cutting foliage back too much and clearing dead stuff out. That is not the typical landscaping style here in the Midwest. Most folks just mow everything, leaving a few larger trees. Vistors enjoy the wilder views but think it takes too much work. I suppose that might be the case for some people but I enjoy it.

And a quiet spot by the pond.

One spot around the house that seems to get the most attention when new folks show up is the table by the pond. I guess is easy to imagine sitting in the shade by the pond with a favorite beverage, enjoying the view. Well, it is a nice place to relax. We've spent more than a few hours there.

Of course, there is the veiw from the porch during the fall.

Since this page is written in late fall I've added a fall foliage view from the veranda. We've had a slightly dry summer this year. As you can see along the front of the dam, at the lower left corner of the photo, the water level is down about a foot or so. That still leaves another ten foot depth to the pond. A few years ago we had a very dry summer that had the water level down by about three feet. Even at that lower level, it was no problem for the pond's fish. They still had plenty of depth for food and oxygen.

Not just the trees around the house have grown. This is the driveway now.

The trees along our driveway have grown quite a lot. Each year I trim them back to allow clearance for delivery trucks. It gets more difficult each year as the trees mature and develope thicker limbs. It does however provide a forest tree tunnel feeling as we drive in and out. That machine you see parked next to the driveway is my six wheel diesel Gator. It is like a small scale but strong truck for the property. Its rear four wheels provide plenty of traction for climbing up and down slopes and has a very low center of gravity to handle side hill trails. It'll easily haul half a ton of wood or rock.

That gate that looks like it is falling over is actually a kind of landmark. We've never closed it. I had painted the original gate white to make it easy for us to find our driveway. This one is a replacement for the original gate that was destroyed by a utility company tractor a few years ago. Our neighbors suggested it would be nice if we replaced it. Apparantly folks down the road had been telling people how to find their homes by counting driveways past the 'White Gate'. A bend in the road allowes the gate to be easily seen. The utility company replaced the gate and I painted it. Everything was back to normal for the neighborhood.

Here's Faith driving her Jeep out the driveway for trip to town.

Just to give you a feeling of scale for the length of the driveway, this photo shows Faith in her Jeep just having come around the bend in the driveway. The bend is about half way along the driveway from the house and guest parking area.

Well, that's our story for 2024.