Smoketember...

...That is the new name for September in the Sticks. 

#Post13

I am very intrigued and mesmerized when the farmers burn the fields. Ask anyone of the 7 of us who live down here...all daylight hours of everyday of September & in every direction you will see extremely large clouds of smoke. They are beautiful. 

For someone who has migraines that are triggered by smoke...needless to say I was very alarmed but for the most part it has not been an issue. The smoke tends to have a sweeter smell (to me). I assume that has to do with what is being burned. 

Nick and the kids watched a few days ago as a farmer set fire to his fields. He rides an atv with a tire being dragged behind it. The tire is on fire. The farmer drives in a "S" pattern setting fire to the field. Here are a few pics courtesy of Jaci. 

Nice camera work baby girl. 

Here are a few I took today. 

Ohhhh Sweet Lord!!!

#Post12

The Jehovah's Witness...

They will find you! Even in the middle of nowhere!

Seriously...they showed up at the front door out here in the middle of the Sticks. 

I'm in shock. 

Ninja & his girls

#Post11

Consider this your official introduction. 

Ninja is our rooster. He keeps all these hens in line.  You may have heard that roosters are mean. Ours is a sweetheart. That is mostly due to the breed we have. 

We have a total of 15 chickens. Last week I would have told you that we had 16. Things change quickly in the Sticks. 

Can we take a minute to reflect on the life of chicken #16...................................

She was good girl, never did anything to anybody & she was cut down (not literally) in the prime of her youth by savage beasts. 

Ok, really the dogs got a hold of her and were playing a little too rough. 😢

We got the first 3 hens when we adopted them from Jaci's Farm Club from her elementary school in June.  The other 12 hens and rooster were purchased in July 2015. They were already a few months old. 

Our chickens are free-range. We let them out in the mornings and they roam the property. They take dust baths and spend their time foraging. Ninja does a good job of warding off anything that would cause harm to the hens. Well except for the incident with dogs but you get what I am saying. There are a lot of hawks in our area and I am surprised that the number of chickens is not lower than 15. Roosters have been known to take down a hawk!

When the sun starts to go down they return to the coop. One of us goes out to shut their doors. 

Some of the breeds we have are Brahma, Plymouth Rock and Rhode Island Red. 

Currently, we have one hen laying eggs. She lays an egg almost everyday. Aren't they pretty? *See above pic. 

Right now, she doesn't lay it until around lunch time. I always assumed that hens layed eggs early in the morning. Oh, the things I am learning. 

We have seen evidence that another hen is getting ready to start laying. Can you imagine when all of them are laying. 

Who wants eggs??? Just kidding...I can't promise anyone eggs right now. 

We eat a lot of eggs. 

Here is the chicken condo:

They love it!

Also our rooster, Ninja, has just started crowing within the last week. It's so cute. No, it is not loud and annoying. Besides we are already awake & getting ready for school. 

Trivia Question of the Day:

You need a rooster for your hens to lay eggs. True or False. 

5am is a struggle

#Post10

For a 10, 8,& 6 year old to get up and ready for school. It has been a true test of patience - for all of us. 

The kids are at new schools with early start times. Their routine is all new but I am so proud of how well they are actually doing. It does not mean that there are not mornings filled with tears but they manage to get out the door when they are suppose to and with most of the stuff they need. 

Last week we closed on our house in Southaven. We are officially living in the Sticks. 

We spent all our spare time lately cleaning & moving out what was left in the house. 

Yea, it's kind of sad saying "bye" to the house you raised your babies in. 

Oh well, a new adventure awaits...

Soooo there is a big chunk of land...

...now what do we do?

#Post9

Did you know that ducks will not just fly down where you want them to so you can hunt them?

Me either. This land is considered quite appealing for ducks but you still have to work and prep it before duck season gets here.

Oh good golly- the working and prepping that's being done. Mowing, tilling, spraying, planting, dirt being brought in, dirt moved, levees being built, ...I can't... I can not possibly keep up with what all is going on out there. So excuse my ignorance because I'm just going to ignore it for now. 

Picking up where our last flashback story left you dangling. I know you just haven't been able to sleep...I apologize. 

The land is now bought & Jimmy and Vickie put their home and their lake house on the market. 

Once winter was over things really started picking up. I believe before the end of February there was a contract on their house. Due to their work schedules and a family trip to Nashville to celebrate Brody & Aymish's birthdays we had very few weekends to move them. 

First question was where are we going to move them and their belongings. You see, one small bit of information I forgot to tell you about is that the land in Tunica has no house, no buildings, no shed on it. No dwelling. 

Nick & I had already found a reputable mobile home dealer and a plan that we liked. We were going to use this prefabricated home as our temporary dwelling to live in on Tunica once we sold our house. We would live in this home until we were ready to build. 

Once there was a contract on their house, Vickie called in panic mode asking where we found a mobile home. 

Needless to say, March of 2015 was very stressful for Jimmy and Vickie. They needed to pack a home they had lived in for close to 30 years. They had to purchase a prefabricated home. Have the land prepped with dirt and anchors, electricity & water run to it. It's Spring time now and that means a lot of rain and delays. Oh so many delays. 

They actually moved out of their house and had to move into a little tiny cabin at the local campgrounds for a few days because the water was not hooked up at the Sticks. 

We finally got them moved in and all of their stuff situated. By the term "situated", I mean that we moved it all into 2 climates controlled storage unit, 1 regular storage unit & semi-sized temporary container. Of course there is stuff in the trailer they live in too. 

I am often asked if anyone has started building yet. 

Yes, they are working on the barn-The first (official) building project. We need a place to store stuff!

Here are some pics of the progress of the mobile home. 

Getting the dirt pad ready. 

Waiting for things to dry out a little so they can finish. 

Half of the house rolled into place. 

Second half in place. 

Here it is once the boys finished the porch. 

Our Welcome Gift

#Post9

When we first moved to Tunica, I noticed that the city felt like they needed to spruce up the highway by The Sticks...they "repaved" a section for us. 

I could just hear the conversation now - "Nobody drives in the middle so we will just save a few dollars by not doing that part."

My Reality

#Post8

This is now my gym...

The last time I was doing a 5K  I'm pretty sure I didn't have to dodge a large pile of doodoo...

...on the road.

This picture doesn't even do it justice. 

This is my reality folks. 

In the beginning...

#Post7

...but where does this story begin?
All the men love to hunt. Duck hunting, goose hunting, deer hunting,  pheasant hunting, elk hunting, red stag hunting, coyote hunting, possum hunting, armadillo hunting, butterfly hunting...it doesn't matter. They like to hunt. *No butterflies were harmed in the making of this #Post.

For most of the guys, duck hunting is their favorite.

Ever since I married into the family the guys have done most of their hunting on a piece of property in Arkansas that belonged to some friends (Hi, House family!). The property was over an hour away from our home. That never really deterred them. In the Fall-duck hunting season, Nick would roll out of bed at 3am to get dressed & go 15 minutes south to Jimmy's house where the entire crew would load up all their paraphernalia and then drive over an hour to duck hunt. Duck hunting paraphernalia includes about 3 layers of clothing, waders (overalls with boots), guns, ammo, dogs, stands, canoe, ATVs, and duck decoys.
I guess this would get tiresome. The hauling of all the crap er, I mean duck paraphernalia.

Approximately four years ago, the boys had talked with the family friends, the Houses, and they knew that the land was going on the market to be sold. I guess this was when they decided to come up with another plan.
I think the plan may have started off with them wanting to find land they could use for duck hunting that was in Mississippi. Once they started looking at property & realizing the size they were going to need & what that would cost then the plan changed to - someone needs to live on the property.

Probably 2+ years ago we found a plot in Senatobia, Ms that everyone loved. It was great. I loved that it was 3 minutes from the interstate and I could get to everything -stores, school, church very easily. Well....after a long interim of time & a seller that decided to back out, we had to start all over.

We looked at several other options. Some we all really liked...with rolling hills. There was one that looked like a scene out of Little House on the Prairie. Well, that one was stolen out from under us in a bidding war.

That leads us to Tunica. Mind you, that all the other properties we had considered up to this point was no more than a 20-25 minute drive from where we lived -the north part of DeSoto county.
When Tunica was put on the table, my first question was "where is that?"
For my local readers, I always get Tunica & Tupelo confused. I thought that surely they weren't trying to move me 1.5 hour away.
Oh, just 45 minutes away? Is that all?

The boys took multiple tours of the property. I think they even hunted on it before the land was purchased. Nick asked me several times if I wanted to go down to "the land".  My answer was "NOPE!" For several reasons but two of them being that 1)y'all keep showing me land we are never going to have 2)you can't possibly expect me to live way out there.

If I recall correctly there was a family meeting & it was all agreed upon that if the land was purchased then folks would/could move out there and build their homes. Tunica land was purchased in November. 2014.
I didn't go to the land until after it was purchased.
Oh well.
Welcome to Tunica Eddlemons.

Sunday Funday

#Post6

Down on the Farm, we had some cleaning to do. This week all the farmhands will be on vacation so there was much to be done before we left.
The main thing on the list is getting the chicken coop/condo cleaned out.
Here are the happy helpers.

Quick story about the feather Brody is holding. He calls it an eagle feather.

The kids went out to help clean. I am inside working, vacuuming and washing the 18 loads of clothing that came back with them from church camp on Saturday.

I stop to take a bathroom break. ^This kid comes inside and is yelling for me. 

Me:"Son, I'm in in the bathroom." 

He proceeds to shove the 2 foot long feather under the bathroom door.

Brody: "Mom, check out this eagle feather I found." (With his mouth at the bottom crack of the door.)

Me: "Wow, that's cool!" 

Brody: "Yea and you can use it for a pen too!"

Me: "Umm, ok."

Brody: "Ok, bye!"

He runs down the hall toward the door.

Me: "Glad we had this time together. Wash your hands!"

Back to the rest of Sunday Funday.

Nick is busy rigging a feeding pipe that connects from the top floor of the coop to the feeder that is hanging underneath. Pretty cool contraption if I do say so myself. He is pretty handy.

Daddoo is on the mower cutting the "yard" - front 10 acres.

MiMi is doing most of the work of cleaning out the coop & has these three goofy, easily distracted helpers. 

Its only 109* with a heat advisory. Satan was just breathing his hot breath down on my people.

Look at those cuties in there working so hard.

MiMi even started a compost bin. 

It was really too hot for them to be out there but they got a lot of work done. 

Nick got to rest & cool off &he was in charge of trying to teach the dogs to leave the chickens alone!

That is all for now. I plan to use some of my down time while on vacation to go back to the beginning and let you guys in on how we got down here to the Sticks.

Until next time...

New Changes

#Post5

SERIOUSLY???

#Post4

It has not evvvven been 24 hours yet and I have had over 500 page visits. Sheesh, thanks y'all but SERIOUSLY - you are that interested in what is going on in my little (crazy, hectic, upside down, whirling, loud, tiring) world??
I appreciate all the love, I do! Keep it coming & I'll do my best to keep putting up posts.
Now you need to Subscribe---->see the right hand column.

I am gonna go learn how to post pics-maybe I can give you another post today.

All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances

#Post3

Your cast of characters...
This is to inform you or anyone who stumbles upon this Blog, who all the characters in our story are. I am sure that I will continuously edit/add and reference this post - be ready.
Make sure you know who everyone is and the names they go by or someone calls them by.
I will add pictures - give me time - I have only started blogging today.
*if you are not listed here & you "know" me, just wait..."I'll get you my pretty." (Reference from The Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz)
**yes, I reference a lot of literature & movies. Try to keep up.
***the title of this post is from Shakespeare & his As You Like It. Who got that one?
"Anyone, anyone, Bueller?" (From the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off),

Ok Ok enough!

The bold names are the names I most commonly use when calling or speaking to that person.

Jimmy Eddlemon (my father-in law) - Jim, Daddoo, Dad

Vickie Eddlemon (my mother-in law) - Vic, Sis, Vickie Darlene, MiMi, Mom

Nick Eddlemon (my husband)- Dad, Uncle NicNic

Daphne Eddlemon (psst, that's me,) - Daph, Mom, Aunt Daphne or Aunt Daph-uhh-ne

Jaci Eddlemon (my oldest daughter) -JaciK, Jaci "Kitty Kat" Kaitlyn

Jadyn Eddlemon (my middle child) -Diddle, Jadyn Riley, Precious, Diva

Brody Eddlemon (my youngest) -James Brodrick, Boudreaux, Doofenshmirtz

Jeremy Pierce (my brother-in law) - Jermz

Katie Pierce (my sister-in law) - Krazy Katie

Azlyn Pierce (my niece) Azzy Dawn

Aymish Pierce (my nephew) - Ayfish, TittyBaby (insert eye roll)

Ben Eddlemon (my brother-in law) -Bobo

Lisa Eddlemon (my sister-in law) - Sleezy

Brylee Eddlemon (my niece) - BK, Brylee Kate

Hartlee Eddlemon ( my niece) - JoJo

Knox Eddlemon (my nephew)

Delta Oaks (the property in Tunica we live on. Original owners named it.) -
The Sticks,The Eddlemon Compound, The Funny Farm, The Looney Bin, Jimmy's Midlife Crisis,


Ok that is enough to get you started.

Well, you asked for it...

...so I'm gonna give it to you.

However, let there be some disclaimers.
1-Yes, I did go to college 4 years and I do have a degree in English. That does not mean I am a great speller or that I am a card carrying member of the grammar police. If you want to hear my thoughts on Subdivision to Sticks then you must remember that these are my thoughts that I have just jotted down and may or may not have "proofed" them before sending them out into the great unknown. Bear with me.
2-If you or someone you know becomes offended for any reason by something that I post, please contact me directly so the matter can be taken care of.
3-I plan on posting frequently but if there is a lull -bring it to my attention.

I told you on Facebook that "Today I will be starting a new segment called 
‪#‎SubdivisionToSticks‬ . As many of you know we have gone from living in a subdivision to living in 
the sticks, middle of nowhere.
I feel like I need to document this so stay tuned." 

Little did I know how excited you would be to hear about life in Timbuktu. 

To catch everyone up & for the sake of documentation I will post my first 2 posts from Facebook: 

‪#‎SubdivisionToSticks‬ So our trash pickup is a man in a white Dodge Ram pickup truck. The driver gets out of the truck and comes to the trash can & pulls out all the garbage bags then tosses them into his truck bed. He then drives in reverse to the next turnaround point - about 1/4 of a mile. 

Yes. I watched it happen.
‪#‎Post1‬

‪#‎SubdivisionToSticks‬ Groupie with my chicks

‪#‎Post2‬

*imagine a picture here...I'm still learning how to do this so I'll add it later

That was the beginning of Subdivision To Sticks. I plan to go back in time and tell you how this all came about-how we got to the Sticks. That's another day & it's already late. Got to get some shuteye before Ninja the Rooster crows. Yea, we have a rooster & his name is Ninja.