No, we don’t have goats, but our neighbors do and we are having too much fun visiting with them and getting to know country livin’. We’re working on a chicken coop, fruit orchard, margarita grove, vineyard, tasting room, and overall general upkeep of our first experience with acreage. I’ve had my hands full dealing with day to day activities and keeping things moving along at a steady clip with the tasting room construction, meeting and greeting new neighbors, learning how to garden for the first time and really, just trying to adjust to our new home.
Across the road from us I often see these guys in the morning. The cows move around these hills and nearby properties for grazing and a couple of times this past month I’ve seen the cattle trucks come and go. I figure this is what modern cattle drives look like anymore. My plan was to follow these trucks and see which ranch they are servicing but that’s just silly. Instead I loiter in my own front yard til I can snap a photo.
I figure what they did was truck the cows in, then two weeks later came and picked them up after grass finishing them. I base this assumption on the fact that when I first saw these trucks go by, they returned within 30 minutes, my guess was they offloaded at that time. When they came back through, I was anticipating a short wait to snap the pics but I waited a full hour in the driveway. When Paul got home he wanted to know why I was out front loitering. They were traveling at a slower rate of speed and sounded heavier and not that I know anything about loading or unloading a cow, I just figure it has to take longer to get them in the truck. If I’m wrong, please feel free to correct me, as I said, we’re new to this country livin’ thing.
And then lastly, I put in a photo of a cropped version of our plans sheet. It shows the road, main house and ag. support structure (second garage/future tasting room). The building was installed back in the 70’s and was used, from what the neighbors have told us and what makes sense for the property, as a roadside farm stand. The first owners to develop this parcel were Italians and they are the ones that planted the grapes on the property. Apparently they had a sizable vineyard which has since been downsized to just a few plants. They also grew many fruits and vegetables and did all of their own canning and processing, which partially explains the accessory building. We converted their pantry into a walk in wine cellar and their gun closet into a humidor. We inherited the original plans for the residence and they show a very specific cubby in the kitchen pantry that is labeled for card tables. Wouldn’t you know it, they exactly fit and so that’s where I put mine. Why not!
I don’t have a date yet for the tasting room Grand Opening, but we are “coming soon”, in fact the banner I ordered the other day should be here by now and I’ll need to get that hung up out front. There are still a million and one things left to do to get ready but we’re not rushing it, that’s not the way we do it out here.
Cheers!