Hello everybody,
If you are starting from scratch, as we were, and you want to end up with a working homestead, you need a plan. And you need to stick to it, at least as much as possible.
The sale of our land closed at the end of August, 2010. We knew that we would certainly not get anything done that year but we planned for the following year.
The first thing we did was to buy an old house trailer. It truly is old. 1973 to be exact but the price was right, the sellers very kindly towed it to the farm for us since our little Honda Civic certainly could not, the stove and fridge worked and it did not leak.
We chose to use the same access into the property as they had used when it was a hay field. Frank bought a heavy duty line trimmer and I had a wicked pair of tree loppers and we set to work to clear the entrance. We met almost all our neighbours on that first day. One chap went home for his chain saw and made very short work of all the tree saplings that I had started to cut. Our neighbour across the street came up the road on his riding lawn tractor and as soon as Frank had blazed a trail through the waist high grass and weeds he drove up and down the new driveway to cut it all down nice and short. We never cease to be thankful that we have such wonderful neighbours here.
The trailer was delivered and we spent the first night in it on our own land. We were thrilled.
Over the next two months all that we really did was wander all over the property and begin to make decisions about where things would go. By the end of that year, we had the start of a plan. We knew where we would put the house, the kitchen garden and the solar array. We also knew that a number of trees would need to come out but we tried to keep it to as few as possible.
Even though we really did not work that year, we did start the plan. And once we made the really important decisions, we did not change our minds. If you start changing your mind after work has begun, it can end up being very costly. Now, naturally if there is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with, that is a different story.
We were prepared to start 2011 by removing the necessary trees, cutting the grass/weeds where the house would go so we could stand on the spot where the house would be and we would start on the kitchen garden. That meant putting up a fence. Did I mention that our property is located smack dab in the Canadian Shield. That means rocks, lots and lots of rocks.
Stay tuned ...
Thanks for visiting today. Let me know if I can answer any questions you may have as we work our way through this building process. Cheers.
If you are starting from scratch, as we were, and you want to end up with a working homestead, you need a plan. And you need to stick to it, at least as much as possible.
The sale of our land closed at the end of August, 2010. We knew that we would certainly not get anything done that year but we planned for the following year.
The first thing we did was to buy an old house trailer. It truly is old. 1973 to be exact but the price was right, the sellers very kindly towed it to the farm for us since our little Honda Civic certainly could not, the stove and fridge worked and it did not leak.
We chose to use the same access into the property as they had used when it was a hay field. Frank bought a heavy duty line trimmer and I had a wicked pair of tree loppers and we set to work to clear the entrance. We met almost all our neighbours on that first day. One chap went home for his chain saw and made very short work of all the tree saplings that I had started to cut. Our neighbour across the street came up the road on his riding lawn tractor and as soon as Frank had blazed a trail through the waist high grass and weeds he drove up and down the new driveway to cut it all down nice and short. We never cease to be thankful that we have such wonderful neighbours here.
The trailer was delivered and we spent the first night in it on our own land. We were thrilled.
Over the next two months all that we really did was wander all over the property and begin to make decisions about where things would go. By the end of that year, we had the start of a plan. We knew where we would put the house, the kitchen garden and the solar array. We also knew that a number of trees would need to come out but we tried to keep it to as few as possible.
Even though we really did not work that year, we did start the plan. And once we made the really important decisions, we did not change our minds. If you start changing your mind after work has begun, it can end up being very costly. Now, naturally if there is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with, that is a different story.
We were prepared to start 2011 by removing the necessary trees, cutting the grass/weeds where the house would go so we could stand on the spot where the house would be and we would start on the kitchen garden. That meant putting up a fence. Did I mention that our property is located smack dab in the Canadian Shield. That means rocks, lots and lots of rocks.
Stay tuned ...
Thanks for visiting today. Let me know if I can answer any questions you may have as we work our way through this building process. Cheers.
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