As you can see, when I say we live in the middle of no where in Missouri, I'm not kidding! Usually, after I explain the above to people their reaction is "Why would you want to live there?" Well, ya see, it's like this...

When we were in college, Terri and I both lived in dorms with roommates for a while and both had very bad experiences. To give you an idea, my roommate had no problem staying for hours in a mutual friend's room with anywhere from three to ten people smoking. However, when we got back to our room, all I had to do was strike my lighter and he would crack the window and put his pillow over his head.

After that I lived in an apartment complex with a couple of friends for a year. The experience was definitely better than living in a dorm, but still had its drawbacks. There's nothing like coming home from the grocery store and finding two guys you don't know from Adam setting at your kitchen table snorting cocaine.

For the last two years of college Terri and I lived together in a quadplex which was located on a circle with a bunch of other apartment buildings. Having neighbors below us and on the other side of the bedroom wall was a source of embarrassment on a number of occasions. Someone stole our Weber off our front porch while we both were in class one day. Another resident of the complex crashed into our car which was parked in front of our building and did about $500 damage to the driver's side door. Although better than living in the middle of town or in the dorm, this still wasn't the ideal place to live.

After we got married and graduated from college we rented a three bedroom brick house in Poplar Bluff. It was the last house on a dead end street (gravel road actually) with woods on one side, nothing but a ditch in the front, and a large fenced in back yard between us and the next house. But, on the other side, there was another house only eight feet from ours. During the two years we lived there, those neighbors had Animal Control turning around in our driveway every other day for two weeks trying to get them to pick up our Doberman who was only a pup and never even as much as growled at anyone. They called the police because we talked to them one time (ever gotten out of bed and answered the door to get a ticket for disturbing the peace? I have! The case was thrown out of court later). They cut my phone line because I draped it on the fence dividing our properties to mow the lawn and forgot to take it down. They erected a barricade across their driveway because I turned around in it one time. I think you get the picture!

At that point we decided it was time to get out of town so we bought this place, do you blame us?

Now for a little about this place. Bumpkinland is actually a 20 acre tract of land located in Butler county just a little ENE of Qulin Missouri. Below is a little diagram of the lay of the land. When time permits, I plan on linking different elements of the map to pictures, for now, you'll have to use your imagination.

Map of Bumpkinland

In case you're wondering, yes, every one of those green circles is a tree which I have to mow and trim around. Our yard makes up about 2.5 of the 20 acres and it takes me a good half a day to mow it and do all the trimming. However, in the summer when all the flowers are in bloom (Irises, Tiger Lilies, Tulips, etc..) and the lawn is freshly mown and trimmed you couldn't ask for a more beautiful place to live!

About half of our property is covered with old growth woods (OK, so the map is not to scale, but it is about half, trust me). It may not seem like a lot, however, we think it's just the right size. Due to a dense undergrowth around the edges, once you get in the middle of the woods, you cannot see any signs of civilization. It also just so happens there is a small clearing close to that center point where enough light gets through the treetops to allow a small patch of lilies to grow. I think it's kinda neat to be walking through the woods seeing nothing but dead leaves covering the ground only to come upon a small patch of green with yellow flowers. It does tend to brighten one's day.

I haven't seen much in the way of wildlife in the woods other than the occasional squirrel, however, I'm told by the person who used to farm the land just south of our woods that, at one time, there used to be a rather large buck deer living back there. The person tells me he has seen the deer on a number of occasions running into the woods. With five dogs now roaming the woods though, I doubt the deer would find it a suitable place to live. Along the south edge of the woods is a drainage ditch which is home to at least one family of beavers. Although the little critters have done a good job of staying out of sight, there are plenty of signs of their presence including a den, dams, and freshly cut trees.

The only real danger when venturing out in the woods comes compliments of the Cypress trees scattered here and there. If one is not watching where one walks, it is very easy for one's toe to come in contact with an immovable object in the form of a Cypress Knee quite unexpectedly. Even worse, it is no fun at all to place one's foot down on top of one of these knees unknowingly. For those who have never come in contact with a Cypress Knee, they are rather rounded on the top and tend to cause one's foot to cock unnaturally to one side which in turn usually leads to a rather nasty sprained angle and the occasional choice word or two.

OK, so maybe I'm a little long winded at times. This page has gotten MUCH longer than I had intended it to already so I guess I'd better give it an ending. There is actually much more to tell about Bumpkinland the place. For instance, I haven't mentioned anything about the field which makes up the other seven acres. Nor have I mentioned anything about the old house place in one corner of the field where one can find the occasional piece of pottery, medicine bottle, or old rusty square nail. Also under the heading of unmentioned would be the slightly darkened area in another corner of the field which seems to contain an endless supply of triangular shaped stones with jagged edges otherwise known as Arrowheads. Maybe, at some point, I'll come back and add more to this page and mention these things. I hope you have found this information informative and entertaining. If you've made it this far I'm guessing you have found it at least interesting? Now, on to completing other areas of the site..........

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