Welcome To My Neighborhood

Kathleen at The Open Window had this great idea to share your neighborhood. This sounded like a fun way to see where all my bloggy friends live. Everyone has done such a great job on their posts. A lot of nice folks have gone on full-scale visual trips around the whole half of the state they live. It's been really fun to see where you all live. Today I am going to show you where I have lived for the past 19-plus years.



We live in southern Idaho in an area known as the Treasure Valley. We are a desert area with only about 7" of rain a year. Yep, a year. I think that qualifies us as desert - don't you? We have 4 distinct seasons every year. Winters are not too cold and we really don't get snow in the valley. Just a dusting once in a while. We are comprised of mainly two industries - farming and ranching. Most people do both because you can't put all your eggs in one basket. Sometimes the farming is good and sometimes the ranching is good - but rarely are they both good during the same year. People here work very hard to make a living. Very hard. And they are the most kind and generous people I have ever known in my life. It doesn't matter how much they have, it matters to them how much they give.
Here is a picture of our home:

I know, the lawn needs mowed, and don't start on me about my flower beds - I just haven't had time people!
This is our new patio we just added this year. We have already spent many hours enjoying our neighborhood from here:


Here is the barn and pasture behind our home:

It is still under construction. The right side of the barn has stalls for the horses and a tack room. The left side is eventually going to become an enclosed area for my husband to have a shop where he can do woodworking and make me really neat furniture and stuff for my house. Well, that's my plan anyway. He is also going to make a cupalo for the top of the barn with a weather vane. I can't wait for that part. I love weather vanes.
If you look to one side of our house you will see this empty field.

It is not ours, but we would love for it to be. The people who own it don't do anything with it. We would love to have it, if for nothing else just to prevent a subdivision from going in there someday. This area is rapidly growing and it would be terrible to have a subdivision right next door. But for now it is just an empty field.
If you look to the other side of our house you will find our church:

I love living next door to our church. It is so convenient to run over there when I need something. I love walking to church. I love not having to be ready at the same time as the rest of the family to leave for church. Our building is only about 3 1/2 years old. When we came to this church there were about 45 people and now we run about 300. We have a daycare and a pre-school. Our building program went smoothly and we are already running out of space. There is "talk" of a new building program that would either add on to what we have or add another building - a family life center. Those crosses you see laying on the ground are going to become part of a garden with a waterfall in the future. One thing at a time.

A broader picture of where I live would include pictures like these:

Even though we live in the desert, just a few miles up the road brings you to the mountains where there is lots and lots of snow and some of the best skiing you will find anywhere. Idaho is home to several major ski resorts. When our kids were younger and I had Mondays off my husband and I would drop the kids off at school and spend the day skiing and be home in time to pick up the kids. Often I would do yard work in the evening.

These are the hills surrounding our area. They are rugged and beautiful. I mean the hills - not us!

And we have lots of cowboys and where there are lots of cowboys there are lots of rodeos. I love how patriotic rodeos and cowboys are.

As I said farming is tough around here. Because there isn't much rainfall all the crops must be irrigated, by hand, one row at a time. If you look closely at this picture you can see the cement ditch the water runs through. A siphon tube is set in each row of the field. Did I mention this is done by hand? Each row. Amazing.


We also have lots of orchards around us. Apples, peaches, grapes, and cherries abound. This is a snapshot I took this last spring - we were surprised by snow that day.


And here is where I go to work each day. I work at a universtiy not far from our town. I drive about 35 minutes each way to work. It's a slow and easy drive - no traffic to speak of.


Idaho is a secret that has slowly been revealed. People are moving here by the hundreds. There are 5 new subdivisions within a 5 mile radius of us. Property values are rising. And the housing market isn't nearly as bad here as it is in other parts of the nation.

I hope you have enjoyed my little tour!