It is said that a field is a forest waiting to happen. Yesterday I cut the grass in what was the field and I left a a section at the far end of the property uncut. This will be my Permaculture Zone 5 which is unmanaged land. My plan is to not do anything with this section of land and see what happens. I assume the edge of the tree line will creep into the field over time.
My plan is to take a picture at the beginning of each month to document the progress of the forest. The picture at the top of the post is from the yard. The next two pictures are different angles.
I was working in the yard yesterday while Evelyn was collecting seeds from her favorite flowers. She was collecting dandelion seeds in a sandwich bag.
She was moving from seed ball to seed ball and filling filling her bag. I asked if I could video her and ask a few questions. She said “OK but I may be a little shy”. with that I made the Seed Video that is now on the Thistle Dew Farmstead YouTube Channel.
I am still learning WordPress so for now I am pressing forward with posts and putting content out here I as I have time. I am trying to document my adventures with Evelyn and make posts about the what is happen on the Farmstead.
Please feel free to contact me with any suggestions or thoughts you may have.
I had a teaching moment with Evelyn today. I wanted to see if I could move an old claw foot tub. The tub was not moved very far but some good lessons were learned. The tub probably weights between 250 and 350 pounds and we moved it a short distance with T-Post, piece of log and part of an old telephone pole.
I don’t know how much Evelyn will retain but she does know a T-Post can be used as a lever and a piece of log can be used as a fulcrum. A lever is one of the six simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists. I don’t remember what grade I was in but I know it was high school physics when Mr. Underkoffler taught me about the six simple machines. I don’t expect Evelyn to understand the math behind a lever and fulcrum but she does know that she can use a lever to lift something that too heavy to lift without a “machine”.
Tomorrow I will have her looking for levers in the world around her.
I will also have a Facebook post and YouTube video to go with this post. I am still working on making better links to the blog. I also just realized that I have no photos from tonight just video. So this post will have no photos.
I took a vacation day today because the forecast looked good. It was a great day for November 4th. I believe the high was in the 70s. I was planting in shorts and a T-Shirt. I dug up plants at the old house and planted them on the Farmstead. My main planting of the day was garlic. The soil in the garden future food forest) was great. It was easy to turn a shovel full to plant garlic. The area I chose for the garlic was tilled in years past. The soil was very nice. I saw a few earth worms and even found a millipede.
I planted the following today:
Tonight I created a Facebook page for Thistle Dew Farmstead. I not sure how to add the Facebook button to the website yet. It is getting too late for me to keep looking into WordPress plugins to handle Facebook. Soon I will be publishing the blog posts on the Facebook site.
Almost two months since my last post. Not only does time fly, life really changes. As I write this I am sitting on a futon with Tandy in front of a pellet stove. This is the first night we needed to turn on any heat.
We have been in the new house for over a month now. We are loving it. The dogs have a bigger yard, Evelyn has a play house and swings and we have chickens. This is so different from the old house. We are closer to Carlisle and most of the things we do. The house is new with lots of light switches and a grounded electrical system. I know these things should not be exciting but after living in an old house so long they are truly exciting things. I do miss the simplicity of the wood fireplace right now but the pellet stove will be cleaner and is thermostat controlled.
We have most of the everyday things unpacked and a lot of the house is set up and ready to go. It will be some time before all out stuff is moved and the old house is sold but life is good. I am using my drive time to listen to podcasts on permaculture and my head is full of ideas for thing I want to try with the land in the spring. I am starting to put together a food forest plan that will block the view of the car lot on the next property and provide all kinds fun stuff to eat. So far I have a basic plan in my head, a few sketches and lists of plants. If all goes well we will be planting a lot of things either later this fall or in the spring. I have also developed a desire to learn as much as possible about the American chestnut and find some chestnuts to plant. I am considering a post dedicated to the American Chestnut in the future.
Hopefully I will now start to dedicate some time daily or at least weekly to establish this website and blog.
We started packing to move. Closing is scheduled for August 21st. That is less than 3 weeks. There is so much to do between now and then to have this move happen quickly. We want to be sleeping in the new house on the 22nd. We are moving so quickly because school starts on August 25th and we want to start the school year in the new house.
Last night we signed the loan paper work. The next step is to have a VA appraiser look at the house and approve the mortgage. If all goes well we will close on August 21st and move in quickly for the start of the school year.
In contrast to our current house the only thing we need to do is install some fencing so we can let the dogs out. I already started researching fencing options.
I spent the evening gathering financial paperwork for a Mortgage Company to buy a new house on 5 acres. Although gathering paper is not an exciting task this is a major step on the way to having a farmstead. Right now the property is a house with a lot of land. It is our hope that we will be able to turn the land into a small farmstead.