Introducing the Small Southern Town

I have been incredibly busy in the week that I’ve been home – and that, combined with limited internet access – has caused me to fall behind in updating facebook, not to mention this blog. But I’m working on catching up. So here we go:

For the next 5 months, I will be living in what I shall refer to as the Small Southern Town. This is the town in which my mother has lived since 2005, and where I lived in 2009 and the first half of 2010. When I left in July 2010, I had absolutely no intention of ever returning. I got over that, obviously.

My mother and I are a bit long on property, which is pretty useful, considering that we’re also pretty long on pets. My house is an old little thing within the city limits of the Small Southern Town. My mom bought it super-cheap ages ago, in the middle of the housing boom, thinking she’d fix it up and sell it at a profit. By the time it had been somewhat fixed up, the housing market had tanked (and it was never all that great in the Small Southern Town anyway). Mom’s boyfriend (although she hates that term, saying that at her age one doesn’t have boyfriends…) offered to buy it from her to serve as a vacation house (he lives about an hour and a half drive away) – and then he had it put in both his name and my name. So woohoo! I have a house. (I used to own another house in a different part of the Small Southern Town – the very, very ghetto part. Mom sold it at a huge loss to one of the local slum-lords just days before I acquired my current house.) Charlie and Mochi live here with me. Mochi loves going out for walks, although Charlie is strictly indoors. Soon I will be moving a gargantuan pit bull into the back yard. But that’s another story.

My house, with Mochi in the front yard
My back yard

My mom’s house is located just outside the city limits. It’s a pretty standard ranch-style house, although you can’t really see much of it from the street as it’s surrounded by flowering plants. There are currently eight dogs and about 14 or so cats at her house.

Mom's house

Then there’s The Land. The Land is located about 15 minutes from our respective houses. It’s eight acres, originally of nothing but planted pines, located at the end of a dirt track that was little more than an unofficial logging road. Three of the eight acres have been put into pasture. We have a barn, two sheds, and two horses out there. We also have a 1951 Spartan Royal Mansion (a trailer similar to an Airstream) and a small A-frame building, both of which are out there for the cats. About 12 kitties live out at The Land. The Land is also the location to which we had an early 1900s bungalow moved back in August. The Land does not have running water, and while electrical lines were just run out there a few weeks ago, we don’t have anything electrical hooked up. The house has been completely re-wired, but it still needs a lot of work before anyone will be living inside and/or plugging things in. For now, water is supplied to the critters from a hand pump.

The house, built 1906, moved to The Land in August 2011
1951 Spartan Royal Mansion
My mom, pumping water