I am loving the extra hours at the farm. Of course I am referring to the time change, and having all these fun projects to dedicate these extra hours of daylight to..... As you all know when we bought this farm, it was overgrown, and had been unloved for quite a few years. The building that is now my workshop was an old 'pet resort' building with FIFTY doggy doors that were wide open, so the building itself was more of a home for the foxes, skunks, bunnies, stray cats, opossums, rats, birds, and whatever else decided to come right on in. I found animal skeletons from where other animals had dragged their prey inside to feast, as well as leaks in the roof, water damage, and spiders, bugs, and rodents GALORE. I even tried to lure people here to do it for me.... Bahahahaha!!!! No bites on that lure, so two years later, I finally started it myself....
Last winter, I started tackling the inside of the building, and am pleased with what I have done so far (see inside HERE), but the focus has shifted to the land around it now. The building itself is around 1300 square feet, and sits on a 3600 square foot slab. The slab has lots of chainlink around it, decorative landscaping that I feel can still be saved (clematis vines that just pool in a pile on the ground), and probably a good dumptruck load (or two) of junk that was thrown out when we started to clean out the building and make it useful.......
I am sure you've seen the progression of the workshop and the land around it if you follow me on Instagram, but I am SO EXCITED about the current situation and what that will mean for the future. I cannot stress enough how much this entire section of land and the building just was too much for me to even begin to work on for several years.... We have been here almost FIVE years now! All the doggy doors, all the chainlink, all the posts, all the overgrowth that had actually grown into the chainlink. All these things had been neglected when we bought the farm, and I had not touched it since we bought it, so imagine what can happen in that time. Here is a peek at what we've been doing:
...as you can see here, I had even lost interest in painting the backside of the building.... I did leave two doggy doors for the runs out back jusssssssst in case. A few weeks ago, I had a couple Great Pyrenees show up, and luckily they were returned in less than an hour, but in the future, I will have space to temporarily keep safe....
The plan back here is to fence in this big mound of yummy grass, and have the goats clean it up for me. I want to also fence it well enough for Reece to run around as well, since I don't really have a fence out here secure enough for a dog like him (high prey drive) at the moment....
He has been loving hanging out in the back kennel area while I decided to pick up with the painting where I left off a few years ago....
I also even spruced up the privacy fence with some fun colors!
....then last weekend the totally overgrown dog runs were the project.... Another task that had been put off for years, and now included trees that had grown through the chainlink fence....
I decided to keep the pines and the evergreens, and may keep any bigger trees that we come across, but most of this chainlink will be removed, and reused for a new fence that will hopefully be secure enough for the goats AND dogs like Reece that I may want to bring here from the shelter for field trips and a little training out of the shelter.... I want to transplant the clematis vines and train them on a portion of the chainlink fence to create a natural privacy wall ..... high hopes for this place...
So, I also learned something new! Apparently when you do this criss cross on stumps when you cut down trees, it prevents them from regrowing sprouts out of the trunk!
...so a couple more burn piles for next winter, and hopefully a fence will be up by this summer! Keep following, as I will also hopefully have some plumbing and a bathroom installed in the workshop sometime this year as well!
...well, we are almost halfway through the week! C'mon, 5 o'clock!!! I have plans for more fun this evening already!
xo
-s
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