Quantcast
Channel: The High Desert Chronicles » Fall 2013
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

So Sad to See the Green Go

0
0

IMG_9903

IMG_9904

IMG_9905

IMG_9906

IMG_9910

IMG_9916

IMG_9918

IMG_9920

IMG_9921

This weekend we’ll be doing a fall clean up. All the grasses, clover, and weeds have died back, and since we didn’t have any chickens and ducks to eat weed seeds this year, we’ll be burning them.

We go back and forth as to whether we’ll continue to keep the house on the market, or if we should just take it off and move forward with our two businesses. Our original plan was to sell the house and purchase land outright, and be mortgage free. But we can’t make people buy our house. Our house is a sprawling 3300 square foot home, and with people downsizing, our house may not be the best fit for most.

We love our house and all we’ve done to it. If we do choose to stay here, it wouldn’t be a difficult decision. It would mean that we need to re-prioritize our goals, and put being mortgage free at the bottom of the list.

Because our house is so large, it gives us the opportunity have a creamery and commercial kitchen, a large courtyard to hold special parties for food allergic children, and full finished basement to create our theater room and guest bedroom. Our house is above all, flexible to any plans we may decide on.

I already find myself planning our spring garden, and below is a design I’m considering for all the raised beds we already have in the northwest quadrant (second to last photo above) :

raisedmetalbeds

We have a lot of raised beds in the quadrant, and if we do plan on staying, we’ll be creating mini contained hugelkulturs. A hugelkultur is a German/Austrian raised garden bed. It’s layered above ground with lots of logs, trees stumps and other wood debris, covered with dirt and then planted. A hugelkultur will need minimal watering since the wood and logs (or even wood chips) absorb water from winter rains (and water in general), holding onto it keeping the raised bed moist without the need for irrigation, or at least minimal irrigation.  I say it’s a mini-hugel because real hugelkulturs are about usually about six feet high, just as wide, and can be as long as you choose. We’ll be creating full sized hugels in other areas of the property, but in this particular quadrant, we need to make sure it stays streamlined, neat and tidy.

Another area I’m eying up on our property, is a place for Simmi’s new playground. She has completely outgrown the swing set in the courtyard, and we need to build her something she can climb on and explore. Another reason for creating a large playground has to do with food allergy consulting work. We’ll be inviting other children with food allergies over to play, as well as having meetings and get-together play groups.

This is Simone’s current swing set:

IMG_9851

This is the area we’re looking to create for Simone:

IMG_5163

These are some of the ideas she loves and picked out when I was showing her all the different playgrounds:

playhouse

playhouse2

purpleallum

ropebridgeribbonswing

bells

swingset

playground3

The one above is Simmi’s all time favorite. She said, “Whoa! I want that here.” What else could a kid want? A trampoline, pool and play set all within steps of each other.

 


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images