Behold! The glory that is my home.
Black line added so you can clearly see the boundaries of our 2 1/2 acre property. Shields Ave, in our part of town, is a simple two lane paved country road. Fairly low traffic. It's about 7 miles East (toward the right) to the freeway, fast food, and grocerey shopping. 2 miles West (left) is a fire/ambulance/sherriff dispatch. Response time to our house is under a minute. Our neighbors to the right are an elderly couple named Elmer and Joyce; they are nice people and we've actually known them a long time. Elmer and my Grandpa Al used to work together. To the right...or across the street...or behind us...well, to be honest, we don't know anyone else! None of the neighbors have ever given us any problems, and we have no problems with then. Such is the wonder of country living.
Looking west down Shields at 5 PM.
Poorly drawn black lines outline boundaries, of course. Links have close up shots of the listed area.
1. Driveway
2. Front Yard Very big, and very unused. Mom would love to have a Japanese style garder put in, if we ever have the money. I'd like to add more fencing and put in more animals, of course.
3. Side Pasture We call this the side pasture because it's at the side of the house, and at one time it had green grass. It's currently empty and I haven't figured out what to do with it yet.
4. House Isn't our roof lovely? The house itself is over 50 years old, but has been added to and partially remodeled.
5. Backyard Our dogs hang out here and bark, loudly. Bad dogs! There's also a shed in there somewhere under that tree.
6. Chicken Coop Well, you can't see it, but it's there. My Barred Rock rooster "Doofy" hangs out in there, and crows at odd hours. As a side note...my bedroom is on the opposite end of the house.
7. Goat House My brother Boer goat for the county fair hangs out here, but it's also been used to house sheep and chickens.
8. The Barn The most valuable building on the property (I kid you not), our cinder brick, 6 stall breezeway barn with a tack room. We store the animal supplies, feed, and hay in here. The rabbits currently take up two stalls, two stalls are storage, and the other two stalls are open for whatever animals may need them (currently, the sheep).
9. Turnouts Two of the stalls in the barn feature turnouts. Yay.
10. Water Paddock This is usually where we tie the sheep/goats/horses when they need baths. We do have an actual wash rack, but I don't consider it safe enough to use. This is also where the main water trough for the pasture is.
11. Sheep PaddockOnce I manage to fix a section of fence, the sheep will get moved out here. There is a small shelter and they will have access to the pasture during the day.
12. The Pasture 1 acre in all, fully fenced, no irrigation...dead grass 8 months of the year. The critters don't seem to mind, and I'm sure they like the extra space. The pastures serves as my riding/working/training/excersizing area for the big critters.
And to contrast...here's where I used to live:
