Drone Day
We typically think about breaking out the drone for a little property photography in early fall, when the number of chores are low and the ground is decidedly brown. This year we tried to capture a little more of the spring green. Although the drone battery was giving Pilot Steve a few headaches (instantly going from 13 minutes of battery left to one and then uncermoniously crashing in a field), Steve caught some great pics of the overall property and especially of the new fenceline. It is impossible to photograph our “long skinny” in one picture, so I tried to add captions to explain each of the perspectives so you can put them together in your mind.
Oh, do I wish we had had the forethought to do “BEFORE” drone shots when we moved in! It was just such a madhouse trying to get everything settled that photography was the furthest thing from our mind. But we can see the complete transformation, even if we do not have the photographic evidence!
Our little drone!
Your pilot today is Captain Steve. Also you can see the drone doing its thing - yes, electrical wires are a serious obstacle around here.
New front fenceline, just to the left of the trees. (So the drone is actually hovering over our neighbors’ field.)
Front fence. This picture also shows the horizontal lines of our septic leach field. Our septic tanks are actually right behind the house, and then they run UNDER the house, across the front, and over to this area. You can also see the area on the other side of the driveway that Steve mowed around the baby trees.
You can see the brownish line just a few feet in from the new fenceline where the prior nasty fence lived. BTW, the last of that scrap metal was brought to the dump this week!
180 degree view change, now looking down the same fence line, but the back half. So lower left-hand corner is the pump house and a few beehives, then the goat barn/pasture, then the chicken coop/pasture, and then the back pasture. Property ends at the tall firs in the back.
This shot highlights the nice vertical lines of our neighbors’ seedling plantings (literally thousands over the past few years.)
We added a gate at this corner of the goat pasture, but the property ends just one foot to the right of our fenceline.
View from above the house, looking back at the four “quadrants”. The back quadrants are actually not divided by fence, though it looks like it. Those are just tire marks from bringing fence posts/panels to/from their storage area in the far back (hidden in the shadows.). But the grass in that middle section is quite tall (4-5 feet), and you can see there are spots that are quite lush. If we do end up needing to drop a well, we will have the water guys take a look back there. It means a lot longer trenching/piping to get back up to the pump house, but might be worth it if the well quality is better.
Back to the front, where the driveway spurs. Our property line is a little hard to see, but on the far right you see a few posts right off the driveway - that is basically where the property line goes. Steve mowed a line all the way down the hill, so you can kind of see that as well. The neighbors recently set up a paintball course, which is what all of those small obstacles are on the other side of the property line.
Shows our other property line and the proximity to the neighbors. The electrical pole by their dumpster on the far left was what we had originally asked (and we denied) to trench to our property line and/or wire overhead. for the shop electric. For shop electric currently we are actually still using an extension cord that runs from the garage, behind the kennel, and to the shop. It’s on our list!
Aerial shot including a nice view of the water tank in Steve’s truck bed. This photo also shows why we need to plant more trees along the left-hand property line, to eliminate the view of their backyard.
It’s hard to envision how this driveway used to go. Basically the entire area from the split rail decorative fence to the “rounded” bed in front of the the house was all gravel. There were no curbs, and of course there was nothing to the left. Just a driveway that led to the front-of-the-house parking lot. We REALLY hated sitting on the front porch and staring at the grill of Steve’s truck. Grassing the front in hasn’t been easy (still needs some work), but the whole set-up is so great. Watching those curb guys work was a marvel - we honestly wished we needed more (and might add some on the left-hand side by the shop, but aren’t 100% sure just yet.)
Another over-the-house shot. That little bare dirt spot in the lower left is leftover from one of our many burn piles from when we moved in. But for some reason nothing grows in that spot. But the donkeys used to love it, rolling around in the dirt. And now the goats seem to love it as well and are often seen just laying in that dirt pile soaking up sun all afternoon.
A glimpse of the garden. I LOVE having a front-yard garden. I like seeing it out of my kitchen windows, but it is also impossible to ignore.
The greenhouse will go outside of the garden fence (we will cut the fence and attach it right to the sides of the building once built), generally in the middle of the side closest to the goat shed.
Whether this garden actually produces anything or not, I could not love it more. Horseshoes and firepit are right behind, making great use of the front property space (even though I can’t quite find the horseshoes this year - they are somewhere in the shop!) You can see two tire treads spurring off the driveway toward and along the garden. This was an original driveway, as the space where we have the semi-sunk horseshoe pit was actually the foundation of a double-wide trailer they had on the property many years ago. There is quite a bit of basalt gravel on that old driveway, of course covered with weeds and grasses. At one point I thought about trying to dig all of that gravel up (a ridiculously futile thought), but now we actually like having this “non-driveway” driveway. We use it to cart all sorts of things down for the animals and gardens, and now tanks of water!
You can see the remnants of the sand circle that was here when we bought the place. We assume at one point he had some kind of round pen in this area. We have tried to grass it in, adding dirt, but it still needs a lot more help!
Pilot Steve running the show from in front of the house. You can also see the three new beehives to the right of the house.
The six larger trees we added next to the shop and along the driveway are all doing great. Last year we also added 5 bushier river birch behind the kennel - those are doing okay, but we probably need to give them a lot more water.
Front field looking across the neighbor’s property and up/down our road. The closest commercial orchard is the brownish color in the upper center.
Good view of the un-fenced property line that Steve mowed. We are also thinking that the front corner on this side has possibility for a well - the really lush greeen is on our neighbor’s property, but maybe in the VERY VERY corner? You can also get a small glimpse of the “compound” across the street from us. Their street-side is packed with attached buildings, tanks, giant metal fence pieces, lots of trees and overgrowth. It’s a true compound, honestly the strangest thing ever. Even their driveway is hidden through a secret tall gate and trees. But, given how many trees we might have to plant to get more privacy from our neighbors, I can kind of appreciate the effort!
Red Hawk Farm 2.0.
