Every now and again the Google map gets updated satellite imagery. It's always a big deal because we get to see things as they really are and not as we have them in our imagination. Today we found a new picture and it is a good time to take stock of what our progress looks like.
This new image must have been taken in early June because the new Farmhouse has the roof sheathing and front gable is on, but the tar paper cover is not. Also, the Produce pop-up tent is out front, but the potato plants haven't really taken off yet. So this is somewhere about five months ago. A lot has happened since then, but this post is about a longer time frame. At the time this picture was taken, our house looked like the image to the left of this. Since then we have added windows, doors, roof felt paper, and a moisture barrier to keep the rains out.
At the beginning of last year we laid out a new design for the Farm, and the new satellite picture shows that we actually did it. Because of the house building there wasn't much farming going on. But we did move the fences, partitioning the Farm into three parcels: the right section is the Kitchen Garden where food and flowers grow under the watchful eye of our Runner Ducks; the center section is the House and Kennel where our tiny home cabin is now in its third year; the left section is MacGreggor's Market Garden and the Chickens. When I made this plan last January, the house wasn't even a hole in the ground, but we were headed toward it.
The image on the right is where we began in 2015. Though you can't really see it, the place was covered in things that needed to be cut down, burned, cleared, or dumped in the landfill. It took nearly two years to find the fence on every side, three years to get the trash cleared up. The image next to this one doesn't really do proper justice to the scope of the work we had ahead of us.
We still find trash every once in a while, but the place is cleared edge to edge and side to side. What little trash we do find fits into our weekly trash container. Our Basset Hounds are the ones who bring this stuff to us every once in a while.
We still need to remove quite a few trees. This just may be the year we get to it. But from the look of this new image we are getting there.
In the coming year we hope to finish the house, plant a proper crop and sell it, and begin the hard work of laying out the Farm as it should become.
But today it is a Winter mud pit. Walking around the place, anywhere that isn't somehow raised above the mud, is a real problem. Driving the tractor only makes things worse. What we need is a dry month to begin cleaning it all up.
Things are going real well at Creekside Farm. Lots getting done, more needing done. The Creek did rise but it isn't a real worry.
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