A Little Backyard Homestead Project

[milkmansdaughter]

If you could wait till June, my son said he'd come help. He'll be backpacking across Europe, and has been following your pictures of Ireland (I show him your pictures every time he's here, and sent him your blog today...) He likes cookies... He could probably be convinced to come sooner...
Oh... And his first job was as a roofer.

 

[sumi]

Tell him if he can come sooner I have a spare bedroom and some fine pubs in the village here! Cookies can easily be arranged too, but I think hard labour deserves a pint of Guinness and some craic. Got plenty work planned for the next 2 months or so, the shed now being the most pressing. I need to house the chickens in there, so I can fence off a run, or I can FORGET about a garden. Or a lawn.

 

[sumi]

I started sawing off branches from the tree today and got into the shed, so I could investigate it better. The tree is an old and huge tree trunk that regrew branches. Which makes me wonder how old that shed is? It had time to fall into disuse, lose its roof, grow a massive tree inside, which got cut down and regrew quite a bit. Amazingly the walls are still in great condition. I'll take more pics once I've cleared it out more. Did not have much time this afternoon and it was raining the last 3 days, so I didn't get much done, but I am so keen now!

 

[sumi]

Finally got to take a pic of the backyard as it is now… I'm going to clear the area behind the lawn to about level with those white bags under the tree to the left and expand the lawn to there. Ditto the vegetable garden, which you can just see on the right in the pic. The compost heap is probably going to be moved to the side and that whole area around the shed penned off for the chickens. It doesn't look big, but it's a generous space.

The bit in the left is half flower bed, half need-to-be-cleared-still. That's where the stone wall is. The weedy strips in-between all this is going to be turned into walkways with the stones you can see on the ground in the shed pics… I need a lot more of them!! The famous shed is in the back left corner. The berry garden was behind me where I stood to take the pic.

@frustratedearthmother was it you that asked me for a pic of the stone wall? It runs the length of the backyard on one side.

 

[Mini Horses]

Love the stone wall. That place is a treasure trove of goodies! Way, way more work than I need but, love to see it all. With equipment it would be much easier, obviously. By hand, wow!

It will be lovely at the end.

THEN -- you will need to stay at least another year to see and enjoy the seasonal changes from all the hard work you are doing.

 

[Miss Lydia]

That is a nice lot Sumi lots of potential. Love the green grass and that stone wall.

 

[sumi]

It is a lot of hard work, but it's fun too, seeing the changes and being able to redesign the space out there. I said to my landlord "See what happens when you tell me things like 'It's yours, you can do with it what you want'" lol He just laughed. I'm planning to stay at least another year to see things grow and to enjoy the work I've put into it. But eventually I'd love to have my own place.

 

[Miss Lydia]

And hopefully you will

 

[BarredBuff]

Looks great. The stone wall is nice--- we have stone fences (just like that) around the horse farms in Lexington.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Wow - the wall is really cool! Don't remember if I asked or somebody else - but thanks for the pic! It's amazing to me that those walls stand for so many decades and (I don't think) they are mortared in place - just stacked?