My friend Aarene at Haiku Farm blog recently posted an aerial view of her land so we can picture it. After a couple comments in my last posting, I decided to follow suit and try to fanangle an image together. Click to enlarge (and read my "legend": ).)First I drew a clumsy dotted yellow line around our property border. Then I decided to draw in the fish ponds and creek. Then I decided to show you all the extent of the blackberry madness. It's madness, you see!?No. 72 is the wooded lot between our home and our field. Although we don't own it, it's protected "nature" land and cannot be built on, whew. Maybe someday we'll buy it. When I ever feel that I don't have enough blackberries to kill, haha: ) We call it "No. 72" cuz that is the property designation in the city's land ownership book.
Interesting side note: Mr. S was showing us some blueprints of our home from 1938. Hand-drawn, very pretty old paper. It had a Nazi Swastika on each page, stamping it officially. The S's were kind of embarrassed by that I noticed, "It was before our time!" Well it's not like Hitler himself dropped by to approve this lot, at least, I don't think so...
Anyway, why is our property such a weird U shape you might ask? We were very blessed. If you didn't catch my earlier posts (November), you might not know that we found this house on one acre, and I wanted to walk away from it, cuz one acre - not enough. The owner said, "No problem, you can rent this big field here." I was reluctant - renting contracts can be withdrawn and suddenly you're back to having one acre. No good. Also, I didn't know that the properties touched, down by the ponds. I thought I'd have to walk my horse to pasture every day, or vice versa. No good! Then my man came home and picked me up and hugged me and said, "It's for SALE, that field, and affordable!" That changed everything. We actually only purchased half of that big field, and we'll rent the other half. The half we are renting is inaccessible without crossing our portion, so not very desirable to anyone else. Besides, we talked to the owner and she said we have first dibs on buying it, I made her repeat that part: ) It was a real answer to prayer cuz I don't think we would have been able to afford this place if it came with so much land. It just worked out for us, and hopefully we'll buy No. 72 someday, just for contiguousity sake (is that a word?).
You see a lot of red indicating blackberries. I've actually cleared a one-meter wide path through them along our fenceline on the left side and bottom of our "Hang."
The patch between our field and our ponds is cleared now too, but I expect it to spring back any moment (I actually saw the rhizome sprouts last week *shudder*.)I also lay twenty bundles of cut brambles up near the house, to be taken to the recycling center. Never had I had such a perfect use for baling twine. 20 little bundles tied with twine, with a little twine extra for a handle. It's way to wet to burn, so I'll be making lots of trips to the recycling center. (Sorry, I don't have a picture of my battlefield of neat bundles: (
The field is now lined with much, much bigger piles, too big for baling twine. Those might have to wait, and eventually burn. We'll see.
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16 comments:
lol! It's funny. The blackberry brambles on your map look like blood spatters. I bet you're wishing they'd all die. hehe
It's too bad you can't create something useful and saleable to create or do with those brambles. You'd be rich! :D
Thanks or sharing your aerial view. You've got a pretty good set up there.
Where is the barn located? And what do you do with the trout ponds? Do you restock them with fish? Do you or your hubby fish them? Are they spring-fed or do you have to fill them with water or hope for rain?
Does Baasha use them as a water source?
Sorry for so many questions :P
~Lisa
cool! is land there a lot more expensive than WA?
I see the madness. Kill! Kill the blackberries!
that's very cool to see the aerial shot. Somehow, I thought the ponds were bigger. hmmm~
I really like your slideshow of Baasha!
BLACKBERRIES MUST DIE!!!!
Other than that, your property is gorgeous! Congratulations. Are you so excited to move in?
And also congratulations for using the word "rhizome" correctly in a sentence. Not a regular occurrence in the blogs I read....
-g-
Land is a ton of work and youv'e got yours cut our for you! I do love the thought of having our own
someday!
Amazing about the history of the land and the swastikas.
Carry on..and more power to you!
KK
Laughing Orca, the blood is all mine, haha: )
You can see the barn in the photo - it's the little building right next to our house. Our house is directly on the road. Our barn is about 10 feet from the house, I love that. Better would be if they were one building (many, many people in Germany have their home and barn as one building. So COOL!).
You ask good questions. What will we do with those trout ponds! We still don't really know. The trout are huge, ready to eat, if only I knew how to clean a fish: ) We may sell some to the farmer's market - a friend has a stand there. Or we may just give them to family members. A man from church would like to come help and catch some. My mom just sent us a package in the mail today, and inside were several fish recipes. It took me a while to realize why: ) My husband isn't a fisherman either, but I'm hoping he takes on the project and leaves me free to deal with the horse: )
What I have learned about trout is that they require fresh running water. That is why that little stream diverts into the ponds, feeding all the ponds.
I would let Baasha drink from that stream, but I'm afraid he'll screw up the water for the fish. He loves to paw in water, and he really loves to poop in water. Pig-pen!
I'll probably put a trough down there by the stream and scoop water for him.
Redunappy - Nothing really compares to King county, and that is really my frame of reference. I was shopping between Issaquah and Northbend, and actually almost put an offer on something, but then I moved away. I would have loved to live in the I90 corridor, with easy driving access to the mountains. Germany has so many more people on so much less land, the land is pricey. Most people here live in row houses and apartments and are really happy to board their horses. Horses are much more common here - horse sports are more relevant than back home, for example. Most kids have riding lessons. My husband is not a horse person, but he knows what the dressage movements are called, to my surprise, because here it's common knowledge. But, out of all the horse owners, almost no one has their OWN land to keep horses on. It's really my "American dream" to have such a property. We got a lot of strange looks cuz people couldn't understand why we don't just board my horse and live in the city. But I made a promise to Baasha long ago, that someday we'd live together. FINALLY!
Aarene, I'm excited but right now I cannot even build a fence cuz of those blackberries. I want to get working on an actual FENCE, darnit!
And as to "rhizome" - the word is also German - if I understand correctly, that is why blackberries are so troubling - they spring back from their thick hardy rhizomes. Rhizomes are what allow that awful rebirth, even after years of no sunlight from being poisoned/cut back.
All horse stuff - thank you! I'm kind of glad we didn't get 10 or 20 acres, when I see how much fenceline has to be maintained. With electric fence, it's gonna be a weekly task, I think, cutting back branches from the wires, to keep them working. If possible someday I'd like to put in a roundpen on a semi-level spot and set up cavaletti to keep my horse flexible. Just dreaming....
sounds like it was meant to be. That's pretty cool!
Some things never change. Fighting with blackberries in pastures is one of them I think. Have you thought about maybe renting some goats to help you with the blackberries?
Lytha-
could you maybe just PICK the blackberries and make some PIE? :)
Yes, the whole German Hitler thing is very touchy...I live in Texas with lots of VERY german immagrants...my friends dad was just a little German blond headed boy when it all went on and he gets very emotional talking about it...he was little but his big brothers went into Hitler's Army...it is SOOOO amazing how little the normal German person knew what was actually happening to the Jews in their own country at that time....even they couldn't comprehend the atrocities of a very twisted man.....keep up your neat blogs!
--mindy
jacksonsgirl - you're not from the PNW, i can tell: )
if i were to "just pick the blackberries" - i'd wonder one day why i cannot open the door or any of the windows of my house. my horse pasture would not exist anymore, and my horse would cut himself everytime he tried to move.
but you can go ahead and call me the blackberry nazi if you like i won't be offended: )
i went to the museum of emmigration a few years ago up on the north sea of germany. it's fascinating as an american. we get to go on a simulated ship ride from bremerhaven to NY, with the dream of a new world. they show you on a huge map where most of the germans emmigrated to at the turn of the last century. mostly america, and mostly texas.
there is also a map illustrating all the cities in the US with german names - texas has most of them.
gotta take my man to texas and show him some history. my dad is from texas.
i don't know how big this is in texas, but we LOVE that show king of the hill: )
That aerial view is really neat! Thanks for sharing!
I bet you are so excited that you can just taste all of that blackberry pie...and jam...and preserves...lol!!!! Just kidding!!!
The aerial view of your home is too cool! Thanks for sharing with us. :)
Wow, that really illustrates your blackberry problem. If the rhizomes are underground, maybe someday they can be dug up with a backhoe?
Thinking back a bit to the shepherd, I've just met an acquaintance who has ten acres or so and a couple of horses. She was saying that soon the sheep will arrive. They eat down the ragged grass, fertilise the ground, and get it ready for spring growth. Some the horses graze, most is used to make hay.
The fishponds look nice. I guess that they will call for some research. You'll need to avoid chemical runoff. I recall someone who sprayed their lawn and this prompyly ran off in the next rain and killed all the fish. Just in case you thought to chemically remove the brambles.
WHP - you probably didn't see my question about sheep and worms. a couple people mentioned that sheep reduce a worm load on a pasture. how is that, exactly? how does adding more animals create less worms? different worms, yes, but less?
i'd like to see sheep eat the roughs (areas the horses won't graze), when i have roughs in my pasture. right now our field is golf-course-like. ok, a golf course that has recently had thousands of piles of fresh fertilizer laid on it by sheep: )
right, chemicals won't come near our ponds - it's not just our fish that would die, it's the neighbor's fish too.
you probably know this, but in germany if you want to buy RoundUp, you have to sign a liability form so that if you hurt the ecosystem, they can't sue the store you bought it from. the form says i will agree to obey the label warnings, and promise not to make street drugs out of it: ) (that last part was a joke - back home we recently had to start signing a release everytime we buy pseudofed, a common cold medicine, because people started making drugs from it.) as safe as RoundUp is, i am still shocked it's available here. (it's kept in locked glass cabinets at the hardware store.)
~lytha
Oh yes, Lytha! Yes I see it now. How wonderful to be so close to your barn. If I were that close, compared to having the barn way up the hill, I'd be much happier because I could just step out and see my mare and touch her. :)
Most Americans are so different than Germans, in that they build their barns far away from the house.
You would laugh if you could see where we built our chicken coop....6 feet from our kitchen window! lol!
Most people said that was crazy because of the smell and flies, etc. But we've never had a problem because we keep the coop raked and swept and we don't have hot humid summers like some areas do.
I love to sit in my kichen drinking tea or coffee and just enjoy my chickens. It's very relaxing :)
~Lisa
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