Closing on Farm Property!
We're just 2 weeks from closing on the farm property! We've been working hard in preparation for nearly two years to make this jump, but good things come to those who wait. As we enter the first phase of this new adventure, we're kicking off a new blog to chronicle the changes from city folk to full time growers.
Our new farm is just shy of 52 acres with a small owner built house and cattle grazing land located a few miles away from the Guadalupe River southeast of Seguin, TX. We have dreams to put in market gardens, an orchard, pecan/oak savannah, chickens, dairy cows, and restore the riparian area around the stream. But first things first, we still have to close on the place and pay the land off (will take a few years of hard work and a lot of luck).
This all started about 4 years ago when I watched a Geoff Lawton video on youtube. What a fascinating man. I had long had this strange feeling that our life was irregular and out of balance, but lacked the sophistication and comparison to articulate that fully. Permaculture to me was a way of showing what life could be like if we lived as a member of the natural world instead of spending our life trying to pretend it doesn't exist. I read a hundred gardening books, listened to every Paul Wheaton podcast, watched hundreds of instructional hours on youtube, started gardening and planting trees. Two years after that, I went to a 72 hour PDC course taught by my friend and mentor Theron Beaudreau and that really kicked things into gear. Every drop of water from my suburban roof is directed to fruit trees, I have the largest and most bountiful backyard garden in my neighborhood, and I have polycultures and small guilds everywhere. Bird and bug habitat abounds, wasps patrol the garden like little black and yellow constables, and the trees are just reaching that size where you can't see anything. Now we leave this place to start over, hoping that whoever picks up this place will continue our work and take it to the next level.
The big plan is for me to quit my job in a few years and take this on full time. I have a payoff schedule and an investment buildout schedule for March 2019, so most of the blog will be in preparation for that. Most of this year though will be focused on house stuff. Bathroom remodeling, gutters, plumbing, etc. That sort of thing. I'll make a "planning" checklist page where I can hold a checklist of items to do once we start getting boxes moved.
So here is a little video of the place. We had some foundation repair done, so that is the dirt that you see. We didn't get much of a chance to walk the grounds because of the rain, but there's at least a walk down to the top pond. It's a little hard to make out in the video, but that red tailed hawk is HUGE. She was probably calling out to her mate and/or unhappy that I was around since she didn't start screeching till I walked over there.
While we were doing the final walkthrough today, we got a chance to meet the family that turned this place into a grazing paradise from what was once a bunch of scrubby mesquite and juniper ash. They still live in town, the youngest living with his family right next door to us. We spent a while talking about the legacy we were inheriting from them, asking all sorts of questions about the property and the house, and getting to know each other. It was a wonderful morning.
Our new farm is just shy of 52 acres with a small owner built house and cattle grazing land located a few miles away from the Guadalupe River southeast of Seguin, TX. We have dreams to put in market gardens, an orchard, pecan/oak savannah, chickens, dairy cows, and restore the riparian area around the stream. But first things first, we still have to close on the place and pay the land off (will take a few years of hard work and a lot of luck).
This all started about 4 years ago when I watched a Geoff Lawton video on youtube. What a fascinating man. I had long had this strange feeling that our life was irregular and out of balance, but lacked the sophistication and comparison to articulate that fully. Permaculture to me was a way of showing what life could be like if we lived as a member of the natural world instead of spending our life trying to pretend it doesn't exist. I read a hundred gardening books, listened to every Paul Wheaton podcast, watched hundreds of instructional hours on youtube, started gardening and planting trees. Two years after that, I went to a 72 hour PDC course taught by my friend and mentor Theron Beaudreau and that really kicked things into gear. Every drop of water from my suburban roof is directed to fruit trees, I have the largest and most bountiful backyard garden in my neighborhood, and I have polycultures and small guilds everywhere. Bird and bug habitat abounds, wasps patrol the garden like little black and yellow constables, and the trees are just reaching that size where you can't see anything. Now we leave this place to start over, hoping that whoever picks up this place will continue our work and take it to the next level.
The big plan is for me to quit my job in a few years and take this on full time. I have a payoff schedule and an investment buildout schedule for March 2019, so most of the blog will be in preparation for that. Most of this year though will be focused on house stuff. Bathroom remodeling, gutters, plumbing, etc. That sort of thing. I'll make a "planning" checklist page where I can hold a checklist of items to do once we start getting boxes moved.
So here is a little video of the place. We had some foundation repair done, so that is the dirt that you see. We didn't get much of a chance to walk the grounds because of the rain, but there's at least a walk down to the top pond. It's a little hard to make out in the video, but that red tailed hawk is HUGE. She was probably calling out to her mate and/or unhappy that I was around since she didn't start screeching till I walked over there.
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