Great Blue Heron
We have a great blue heron that fishes in our pond in the mornings and sometimes in the evenings. It is extremely shy and flies away the moment we walk outdoors. But today we were surprised by two great blue herons in our pond! If you look closely at the photo below...
Chinese Mantis
I spotted this mantis while mowing around the flower beds next to our driveway. It was roughly 4" in length which means it was probably a Chinese mantis (the largest mantis species found in North America). This particular mantis was fast. It was hard to snap a picture...
Black and Yellow Garden Spider
I saw this beautiful female garden spider while clearing some vines from a tree. This spider's official name is Argiope aurantia, but it is often called the black and yellow garden spider, yellow garden spider, golden garden spider, writing spider, zigzag spider, corn...
Common Snapping Turtle
Grandma and Grandpa visited Red Runner Farm for the 4th of July back in 2017. We were getting ready to go to a holiday party when I noticed something odd by the driveway. It was a HUGE snapping turtle! We noticed the poor guy's shell was cracked near the middle. Maybe...
Hiking/Trailblazing
One of my favorite parts about growing up where I did was the woods. I would go out there and play for hours and build forts. I'd wander in the woods and make up stories. Those memories are a big reason I wanted to buy some land, and also why I was first excited about...
Fall Flowers
Our yard needs a lot of work. My mom has been helping me beautify things around our property. Last week, we found some sweet little mums at Southern States and Anna helped pick them out and then plant them. We put the mums in our weed-filled flower bed on the front of...
Squeaky Clean
We wanted to really clean the shed before getting too settled in and unpacked. I just wanted to knock off the cobwebs, you know? But my father suggested pressure washing it so we took him up on the offer of help. We washed all the surfaces we could reach with the...
Exploring the woods, spreading hay, and trimming trees
Becca and I had a lot of fun exploring our woods today. We are still trying to get our suburbia minds around the size of our property, and so we didn't wander too far in. We found lots of trash (thanks previous owners...), what looks like it might be a water storage...
Fixing the shed door
We have a large shed, about 24' x 40' (960 square feet). It has big doors hanging from trolleys, maybe 15' tall. Three of the doors are bolted closed, and sadly the fourth door was hanging from a single trolley so we couldn't shut it. We bought a new trolley...
Filling in Holes
Our front lawn was bulldozed into its current shape about 30 years ago. Our pasture side was a mountain and much of it was pushed across the now driveway to make our lawn. As it has settled some random holes have appeared. While mowing today, we discovered a few of...