View from my yard

A sometime reader commented recently that she was surprised to see the two-story monstrosity of a house so close to our home.  She thought we were in the middle of forty acres, just like she is.  Since she hasn't followed my blog for a long time, I understand her surprise.  
Four years ago I was fed up with neighbors, neighbors everywhere I looked.  Oh yes, we're in the country. But we had no solitude or sense of privacy at all, unless we went to the pasture.  
We aren't exactly rolling in money; our 401K wouldn't even buy a car; so I devised a plan that would allow me to move back several yards on our property and have some peace and quiet.  We'd refinance, buy a cheap, used mobile home, and I'd be able to look in any direction and see wide open spaces.  
At the very same time, the neighbors to the west whose house had burned to the ground decided to put their new house back farther from the road.  
You guessed it.  Right next to our "new" home.  
Those neighbors never completely finished their home.  They never planted grass in the yard.  They didn't mow their pasture.  The siding started blowing off one side of their three-year-old house and they let it blow.  Finally the house was foreclosed on.  
I have made a point, when taking pictures outside, of keeping that house out of view.  This might be why my reader expressed surprise that it was there.  I am hoping and praying that whoever buys that property will do something with it that will make it look better.    
Here are some pictures that will show just how populated my little part of the country is.  

Why yes, I do have a barn in my front yard.  I love it, by the way.  Looking south from my front porch, this is what I see.  On the far side of the barn to the left are three houses, one of them abandoned and up for sale.  The faraway pole barn is on that property.  

Up there on the other side of Cliff's man-cave (the shop) and behind a two-car garage is our old two-story house where Cliff's sister lives.  It's still our house, we're just not the ones living in it.

Here's the view from our front porch, looking west.  This is reality, folks.   
Thank goodness I have my back yard.   

The only sign of life out there?  Horses, cows, and birds.  That reminds me, I have another load of clothes to hang on the line before church.  

My favorite view of all from my back porch:  Toward the north!  

And looking west, the only signs of that unkept property you can see from my back yard are the head-tall weeds that grow up in summer.  I love my back yard; it's as though we didn't have a neighbor for miles and miles.  


So that's your tour of my home-sweet-home, out behind the barn.