Six Years Today

I almost forgot to turn the calendar over this morning, but after a few sips of caffeine, my groggy mind came alive.

Yes, this is July 1.  

Yes, this IS the sixth anniversary of our life here at the Lovestead.

Six years ago, the term "Lovestead" had not even entered my mind.

Six years later, it's certainly become a household word here at Slight Detour.

Slight Detour was going six years ago, but I do remember missing one entry when we made the physical move from Great Northern Road west of Sandpoint Airport to South Center Valley Road in the midst of beautiful Selle.

Haven't missed too many since. 

When I mentioned this significant date to Bill, he said, "It's probably not going to be as hot as it was the day we moved in." 

He remembers the heat all too well because he spent several hours in it,  bent over on the roof of our former home,  reinforcing screws in the aluminum roofing.

We were given a set of items that needed to be done with our house before leaving, along with the option of paying the buyers to have it done or doing it ourselves.  

We completed most of those tasks ourselves.

That was a hot July,  and time spent on that roof was even hotter for Bill.

It may reach the 70s today. 

At the time, we pretty much figured we had moved out of the frying pan and into Heavenly bliss here in Selle.  For the most part, we still feel that way.

When we moved to this lovely farm, several items and entities came with us. Most are still going strong.  

Animal-wise:  Fuzzy Wuzzy, Festus and Kiwi came with us.  We've lost two horses (Rambo and Casey), one dog Annie and three cats (Charlie, Lonesome Love and Licker)  since the move.
  
Yard Art:  the manure spreader came with us.  It had sat out in the apple orchard at our Great Northern Road farm for 30 years and then some.  

The spreader had long lost its functional use, but it had character, and that character had to come with us to the heart of farm country.

The rustic old piece of farm equipment sits as a flowerful centerpiece of sorts in the north yard.

And, somehow we managed to bring one of the two wagon wheels, pilfered from a neighbor's place by some of my Ponderettes drill team members back in the mid-1970s.  

There's a whole, hilarious story to that heist in one of my books.

The wagon wheels kinda disintegrated over the years, but we still have enough left of  one wheel to add some more historic flavor to the place.  Every once in a while I spray paint the old metal, which provides a nice accent.  


Over the years, I've managed to develop an informal flower bed surrounding the wheel, and, if you look closely in the photo, you'll see a blooming geranium off to the left.


Yes, all those geraniums, planted from seed in February,  have finally started to bloom, just in time for the spring pastels to disappear.  This big, lovely yard that came with the place will soon be wild with bright red blooms.


We've done a lot with this farm in six years---reinforced the lane bed, added to outdoor plumbing, replaced the ugly green storage shed with thankfully fell down one winter, added space to a loafing shed, fixed items in the barn, built hundreds of feet of fence, added to the gardens and, most recently had the beautiful dog run built.


There's still plenty to do, but, for us, it's pretty functional, and if we never lifted another finger of progress, we'd be pretty happy.


It's been a very satisfying and happy six years.  Seems like just yesterday, especially because virtually every single walk in the woods, pastures or yard still inspires the exhilaration we felt on that hot July 1, 2006.  


I LOVE the Lovestead and look forward to many more years of happy existence here.