Real Housewives of Rural Missouri - Day 1

Well today is the first day of my blogging.  This idea popped into my head when talking with a dear friend.  She lives in Los Angeles and I live in rural Missouri.  She loves my stories about living in the country and all the wonderful folks I meet.  So I start today to share my  wonderful world with you all.

A LITTLE HISTORY:
I grew up in California, born in Van Nuys.  I was a Valley Girl.  My dad grew up in Oklahoma and married my mom, a California girl.  They settled in California.  Every couple of years, while growing up, we would take car trips back to Oklahoma to see my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  It was a very large family on my dad's side.  My brother and I (only two of us) fell in love with Oklahoma and wanted to move there some day.  My brother's wish came earlier than mine.  He got out of the Navy and settled in Oklahoma, working with one of my uncles.  Myself, on the other hand, was married and working and not yet decided on a career.  My career came later when I became a Private Investigator.  At the end of my career I had been a licensed PI for 22 years, the owner of my own business for 11 of those years.  My husband retired a few years earlier from PG&E and was working for a sub contractor. 

As we approached our goals of when to retire, we discussed where we would like to live.  California was not an option as it was to expensive to retire there.  We had a small 5 acre ranch in the foothills above Fresno, lots of horses, dogs and cats.  We wanted a larger ranch somewhere.  My brother lived in Diamond, Missouri and we thought it might me a nice place to retire so the family is all together. 

Soooo long story short.......we found a piece of land - 80 acres with lots of trees, a small woods, a fantastic large creek that runs all year round and lots of pasture with a small 100 yr old milkin' barn on it.  We bought it, site unseen, except through my brother's eyes.  The land was located about 20 miles north east of my brother's place.  We then started to see our Calif. ranch and got an offer right away.  Escrow was a 30 day escrow and we started packing.  I was still working a very large murder case so I worked and packed.

It took us one year, 7 round trips with two trucks and two horse trailers filled with our belongings and stock and dogs and cats, and fish - oh and my parrot , Love bug.  In between trips I worked, packed, we built a 60 x 120 ft metal barn with the intention of building a small bunkhouse inside to house us until we built our dream home next to the barn.  Well......the best laid plans of mice and men do sometimes go astray.  Ours sure did.  The escrow fell through, but meanwhile we were in the middle of moving.  We bought a gooseneck camper trailer to live in for a short time.  I continued to work - running my case via Internet, fax and phone.  My office was in the nose of the trailer where there should have been a living room but instead it contained my desk, computer, printer, fax, phones, books, files etc.

We finally landed with the last load of stuff which included 4 horses, 2 mules, 8 dogs, 6 cats, 16 gold fish and one parrot on July 21, 2003.  It was truly a landing.  You should have seen the looks at the rest stops en route when we would unload the dogs for a potty break. Ma and Pa Kettle's Ark.

That will give you a little background from whence we came and now I will begin with me livin' as a REAL HOUSEWIFE OF RURAL MISSOURI.

That is all for today - good stories to follow - Oh by the way - with each story/blog I will try and share a little old country wisdom or recipe. 

Today's Country Wisdom is - if you have a toothache - put a little vanilla extract on it and it will stop hurting.

Thanks for spendin' some time with me.