My Ranch in StoryOak Downs

                                      My Ranch in StoryOak Downs


    I have a small ranch at the edge of StoryOak Downs, just enough room for my two horses; a palomino named “Star” and a Mustang pinto named “Shelby”.  Thirty acres of green pasture with a bubbling brook and a small swimming hole, more than enough room for my horses.  The barn, painted red of course, but small, just enough room for them, the farm tools, a potting table for plants and my riding gear.  I have a neighborhood high school boy who helps keep up the place and care for the horses.  The man in my life is Bob and we have been together for a long time now and are very happy.

    My house is two stories, with two bedrooms and two baths, painted sunny yellow.  It is made of concrete block which has been smoothed out so it is always cool and dry inside.  From the front you see a two car garage, the large window into the kitchen, and the oaken front door window pane displaying a yellow rose with a textured border that I crafted myself with glass paints.  The rose matches the eight smaller roses in the glass panes in the garage door.  I have a large oak tree in the front yard, no grass, but a four-tiered waterfall fountain filled with Koki.  The oak tree shades the downstairs bedroom and the sleeping loft and bath upstairs.  The sleeping loft overlooks the living room which has a 15 foot high panel of glass and French doors.  Above the French doors is an arch, also painted with a large yellow rose that I did myself.  The rooms in the living room are filled with comfortable furniture that has two conversational grouping areas of chairs with a couch in one grouping and a love seat in the other.  A round oak table with four chairs sits between the kitchen and the living room with the extra leaf in the alcove closet and one of the extra two chairs in each bedroom. 

    In the sleeping loft upstairs I have my International Dateline pictures and two collages of my cats and of my Dad when he and I were younger.  The sleeping loft bedroom and bath are painted a robin egg blue with a lighter shade of blue for the downstairs bedroom and bath.  The kitchen is painted a sunny yellow, paler than the house and shaped like a horseshoe with an open cabinet facing the oak table and the living room, which is painted in a butternut color.  The counter makes passing food to the table easy and also serves as a buffet area.  I’ve hung my cast iron cat trivets on the kitchen wall but they are also used as they are intended, to hold hot foods.

    Green plants are in every room plus in one wall in the living room is a 100 gallon fish tank with gentle Angel Fish, tetras, and two kinds of glassfish.  The gravel is a sandy color with lots of coral formations completing the tank.

    My friends live all around me in their houses; Easy, The Gentleman, J.A. Buxton, Alexandra Griffin who I helped find her pen name, Shelly Sunshine and lots of others from our writing.com site.  Our village always has birds singing and we hold special and mundane parties and picnics in the village square.  We always have a brilliant fireworks display for the fourth of July.  Very little crime other than the toilet paper in the trees on Halloween and the little left over from the Homecoming football game and dance at the High School. StoryOak Downs is a quiet and very lovely place to live.