I decided to begin the tour not in the driveway as if you came here by car but in the far corner as if you came here by camera. 
This is the northwest corner of the farm that we have rented since August 1985. At that time we were a family of three, Phil Dirt, Stephanie, and myself. As soon as we arrived I decided that my idea of having only one child was rather silly and our second daughter was in the making.
This is the gate that you can see in the first picture. Across the state highway you can see a big white rock and a driveway, this gate was put in when our second oldest girl was big enough to come down here and cross the highway with the horse so she could ride with her friend and practice gaming in their sand pit.
Now our youngest two use the gate to go ride with their friends. Every once in a while when God wakes me up in the middle of the night to pray, I think he might be waking me up to check fences and gates. So I trudge out here in my evening wear to make sure no one has cut through the lock. It makes for great prayer time.
This is like we are walking backwards from the corner, don’t get dizzy and fall into the pond. This is all dry by late summer and then fills up again usually in the fall, this year it waited until February. We have had a lot of rain in the last sixty days, or snow that melts quick.
This is the approach to the bridge that Dirt built over the little seasonal stream of water that comes from across the highway. We happen to be the head waters of Horn Creek, the water wonders all start right here.
As you can see from this shot the bridge isn’t nearly as dilapidated as it appears on the approach. I love the rustic things Dirt builds. He built the bridge long before he put in the gate. We needed it to check fence lines in the winter and spring.
If we swing around and face east you might see our driveway just beyond the fence and the buffer piece. Here in the pasture you see my roadside pumpkin patch, this has been a challenge. Timing is everything, this year Dirt made sure it was plowed and tilled before the water came.
All this water now and then in the summer I load hose on my trailer wagon and spend a good portion of the day watering in the seedlings. Another great time for concentrated prayer, not sure irrigation pipe out here would be a blessing. I’ll get it worked out yet. I may be a procrastinator but I’m no quitter. These beds aren’t raised yet, but I still use the wide bed concept. Everybody walks on just the grassy parts, right Fluffy and Martin?
A couple of years ago the farm across the highway was developed and now we have folks living way out here on house lots barely bigger than in the city, inches away from a state highway that has, on occasion, taken the traffic from Interstate 5 when Chehalis floods. When I work out here in my roadside patch I wonder if they enjoy the sound of logging trucks and bass blasting cars mixed with the smell of exhaust and rotting possums.
This is the deeper end of this pond and in the summer when the girls aren’t taking the horses into the pond for a swim they swing on the tire swing, not for the purpose of letting go and falling into the pond, no one would do that on purpose, but they are always sporting smiles when they come in soaked accidentally.
I leave off here in the pasture with a note that, although so far it looks like an idyllic place to be, with the work, coyotes, cougars, bald eagles weasels, raccoons, possum and occasional bear it can be a back and heart breaking place to live. Intense. Yet, I am not sure I could get used to living anywhere else and there will be tears when God tells Dirt and I it is time for us to go do something else. Tears will spill even from the queen of change.
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