The long view
Mom: I need you to share
some photos of your new farm.
Anna: What do you think
I've been posting for the last couple of weeks?
Mom: Those are nice. But
I want long shots.
Anna: Ah! Got it! Here
you go....
When you turn off the
road, you drive up a short hill to reach our new trailer. This photo is
taken from maybe fifteen feet above the road and showcases the gravel
our construction crew delivered on their last day of work --- crush and
run that would have disappeared into the swamp of our old driveway in
short order but should do well on this much drier site.
Pretend you parked where
the car is in the previous photo and walked along the front of the
trailer to the door before looking back down toward the road. The area
in front of you is the septic leach field (being graded smooth in the
image above), which will become a grassy lawn with dappled shade from
several honey locusts. A line of Austrian pines and smaller shrubs
separate this area from the road. Our health department contact says
this area shouldn't be garden but can provide grazing for chickens or
low-density goats.
If you walk back to the
car and look southwest away from the trailer, you'll see the recently
deforested zone that will become my garden. (Yes, that electric pole on
the far left has a serious tilt --- they said they'd fix it before they
hook us up.) A big pile of stones looks handy for edging flower beds
around the trailer, and beyond them (not really visible) is the
foundation of an 18-by18-foot building that never quite got built.
Walk uphill a bit then
gaze back toward the trailer and you've returned to the first photo in
this post. Of course, there's a lot more to the property than that, but
most of it is steep hillside, which you toured previously. I hope that helps you get
your bearings and gives you a better idea where we're at!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Another year and all will be grown in with grass. Hopefully it won't be too muddy this winter and spring!
Do you plan building a wide porch on the side? A little paint on the faded beige siding?
Looks like the start of a nice place to live.
Hi Anna and Mark,
Sounds like your 'health' department is not into humanure? Can you get raw milk and can you slaughter your own animals?
Good luck,