City Girl in the Country

Today the hubby and I headed out to our property in Belen to get some work done. We bought the property about a month and a half ago with the intention of fixing it up and moving into it, but we have since decided that it is just too far from the city for us. Instead, we are going to fix it up and use it as a rental property. We got the property dirt cheap, so we don't regret buying it even though we decided not to live in it, it should pay for itself and become profitable within a few short years, so it was a good investment in the end.
Plus, the mountain views from the front porch are beautiful
I also love the wildflowers that pop up in unexpected places

Anyways, we needed to make some storm doors to cover up the huge tube in the ground that will soon contain our new well pump from would-be thieves or vandals. The doors actually turned out pretty well, unfortunately, the sky decided to open up with a torrent of rain and hail right when we brought them outside to dig the holes for the posts and install them. We figured that it wouldn't be a big deal and the rain would pass soon enough, it never lasts for long out here. We actually welcomed it since it cooled the air down quite a bit from the nearly 100 degree temperatures that we had been dealing with all day. Forty minutes later, when we were still digging and still getting pounded with rain and hail, we weren't quite as thrilled. We finally managed to get the holes dug and the doors installed despite the weather, now we are ready for the new well pump, which will finally bring running water to the property, yay!

Here is a picture of the doors, before we brought them outside. I didn't manage to get a pic of the installed doors because of the rain.

To get to the title of this post, some of the other things that I did today at the property were shoveling cow pies and sawing logs. The city girl in me had to laugh at myself as I did each of these things. I think my hubby, a country boy, found it pretty amusing too, particularly as we took turns sawing through a three and a half inch square wooden fence post with a hand saw. It was definitely a workout! We had two posts that needed to be divided into three pieces each, so there was plenty of cutting to do.
The cow pie shoveling occurred when I noticed that one of the neighbors cows had decided to leave us lots of lovely, combustible presents all over the back part of the property. I figured that I may as well take advantage of this free fertilizer, so I scooped it up and used it to fertilize the pine tree, apricot tree, and grape vine the the previous owners had planted. All three are looking pretty sad and droopy lately, so I hope this helps perk them up. I also made a chicken wire cage for the grape vine, which the rabbits have already picked clean. It had some big, beautiful, healthy looking leaves on it a few weeks ago and now it is completely bare. Hopefully it will recover now that it is protected from hungry bunnies.

Digging the trench around the grape vine

The grape vine safe in its new "house"
This city girl is feeling pretty tired but proud of everything that was accomplished today. I think I'm going to sleep well tonight :)