Man Land..........Camping, Fishing & Hunting Gear, Oh My!

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!" Hayman and I made a trip to the "Big City" over the weekend. We arose at 4:30 AM on Sunday morn...........why so early, well we had to take Countrychick out to meet a friend at a dairy where our friend was doing chores for the day. Countrychick really wanted to help out...........she just didn't know she had to get up so darn early. After dropping Countrychick off, Hayman and I headed for the City. It is a two hour drive for us.........long, long, long drive!! Our destination.........."Man Land!" At least that is what I call it. We arrived early........still had about 45 minutes before the store opened. Spent time walking around outside......how exciting..........until I realized I had my camera with me and I could go to the car, get it and take some shots. Shots of what.........well how about the landscaping. You see, I have had landscaping on my mind the past few months. We don't have any landscaping, just lots of gravel in front of the house at this point. I have seen some great ideas out there, but most of them are just not "doable" or way, way, way to labor intensive. So the landscaping at "Man Land" caught my eye. It was very minimal......I mean very, very minimal.....but in a nice, pleasant sort of way. Very basic, very functional, very doable. So I took a few shots. Wait, I don't want a giant statue of wild animals in my yard..........this is the front of "Man Land." See the following shots.............
I know what some might be thinking.........boring!! Yes, it is very basic, but would be perfect for our High Desert home. It would not require lots of water, time or maintenance and I could still manage to sneak in wild flowers throughout and herb beds. Yes, I like this idea more and more.And we have lots of rocks where we live........really big rocks. See how nice the rocks below look placed within the minimal landscaping............I could do this. It is doable in my book. I don't care for all of the pine trees, but those could easily be replaced with a different kind of tree. Maybe there is hope for my front yard yet.................smile! The journey inside of "Man Land" was not as interesting. Okay, it was okay......I'm not complaining................wandered around for a few hours and left with a few items. I even managed to find a cute lavender sweater.........very cute........I didn't plan to leave the store without it! After "Man Land," we made our way through traffic and many, many stop lights heading to meet my parents at the hotel where they were staying. ( after the well drilling saga, they needed to get away for a few days to relax........:) We had a wonderful lunch with them. I didn't take my camera in with me........shame on me..........I could have had some really good food shots and I could have taken a photo of our waiter. He was funny......his name was Matu.......he was Middle Eastern.......he put up with us and was a trooper. There was a conversation that went something like this at the table when we were giving Matu our order...........Me, " I would like the Mongolian Beef please "..................Hayman, "sure you don't want the Mongolian Cat".................Me, starting to laugh..........now I didn't think our waiter had heard this from Hayman, but he had. Up to this point, Matu had been very serious, but nice............his response to what Hayman said was this.....................Matu, " Sure you don't want Mongolian Cat, I hear it is very, very good "...................big grin on his face and laughing all around the table. I almost shot ice-tea out my nose! Then it was open season on Matu with lots of joking and sending him on a "wine hunt" for a nice bottle to compliment our lunch. It was a very nice meal and the wine........well it was wonderful!! After lunch, Hayman and I headed to the Fly Fishing store. Hayman needed a new pair of polarized sunglasses..........so he can see the fish when he goes fly-fishing. Very important you know! A few more stops were made in the "Big City" and then we headed on home. Stopped and picked up Countrychick before heading back to the farm. Countrychick had a busy day............she doesn't like to "slop" the hogs............the milk went all over her shoes! She learned how hard it was to take care of all of the critters at this little dairy farm.......lots and lots of hard work!! She enjoyed herself though, but I don't think she wants to be a dairy farmer when she grows up! When we left on our little journey it was dark, when we got home it was dark..........what a very long day...........but at least I went to sleep with landscaping ideas in my head..............and thoughts of our upcoming fair weekend........which is another story.