Our Homestead – Then and Now

My mother-in-law brought over a photo collage a while back featuring old photos from our homestead – before it was a homestead. Bare grass and gently rolling terrain was all there was to see. It was quite a reminder about how much things have changed around here.

I thought you all might enjoy a little peek into how things have changed over the years. Our place will never be quite like grandma’s homestead, but we’ve made a pretty nice oasis of growing things here.

Our Homestead – Then and Now

It’s hard to try and capture all the changes, but these are some big ones.

The Driveway

The land we found for our homestead was 35 acres of farmland that was being sold separately from the original farm. 25 acres was in production, being farmed by another neighbor, with 10 acres of abandoned pasture that was landlocked behind the original farmstead. We swapped a strip of land with the neighbor who bought the original farmstead so we could put a driveway in.

The first path to the house was cut through the overgrown pasture but the neighbor who agreed to swap the land. He’s a hard working young man. He bought the old farmstead not long before we bought the raw land, before he turned 21. To get our driveway in, he had to pull and move the line of fence posts he had only recently put in.

As it turns out, the swap worked well for him long term, too, because he used the land that we swapped him to put in a large machine shed. We also agreed to a variance for his shed because it was fairly close to the lot line. Good neighbors are worth their weight in gold.

The original access path, circa 2004, with our van parked out on the road.

The driveway circa July 2017. We had the contractor put a loop in so we could turn around larger vehicles and heavy equipment, and it’s worked out well. Over the years I’ve tried planting flowers in the center of the driveway, but only the strong survive. (It’s a high wind spot.)

There’s a big garden bed to the left of the photo, north of the house. You can see the white and purple lilac trees at left center of the photo, which were a gift from another neighbor.

2020

In 2019, we added a large solar electric array north of the house. It produces enough electricity to cover our use for the year, but we are still grid connected, because it produces more than we need in summer, and not quite enough in winter.

In the center of the driveway, we got an apple tree to survive. It produced a good harvest in 2023.

The Backyard

To the south of the house, away from the road, the biggest transformation has taken place. Since most of the windows face that direction because of the passive solar aspect of the house, we wanted a nice view. It’s also more protected there, by the house, and the treeline, the outbuilding placement and now the pond.

Facing due south, roughly in the area of the house, circa 2004. Not much to see except grass.

View from our south facing deck, circa 2017. There’s the main wheel garden, plus seven rectangular garden beds. At left center, there’s asparagus and peonies, then a patch of red raspberries, and finally sunchokes and strawberries.

To the right rear of the photo, there’s a small orchard/nuttery that is still quite young, with apples, pawpaws, bush cherries, a butternut, chestnuts, rugosa roses and autumnberries. Between the gardens and the pond, there’s a kiwi trellis with boy and girl hardy kiwi plants.

At the upper left of the photo, you can see the new pond, which will help moderate the temperature in the immediate area. We left the back hill to grow up with autumn olive shrubs, and added some maple and birch trees. It’s tough to get new plants established because of the deer.

2023

September 2023 – the new tractor storage/wood working shop is under construction. You can’t see it well in the photo, but at center right there’s a new smaller pond. (There wasn’t much rain this year, so water levels are low.)

The west orchard (center right) had a bumper crop of apples this year, and our first butternuts. There’s a fenced blueberry patch to the left of the new building. Just east of the blueberries, there are hardy kiwis. The male kiwi plant flowered for the first time in 2023. The east orchard is off camera to the left.

The Outbuildings

Obviously we didn’t have any outbuildings to start, but we identified the area to the west of the main gardens as a good spot to build. It was close enough to the house that we’d have ready access, but not directly upwind in case the critters get messy. Most of our winds come out of the west, so it also protects the main gardens.

We added the greenhouse in 2015, and the connected coop/garden shed in 2016-2017. The building was all done by family and friends, mostly on weekends, so it took a while.

2017 – We had to cut into the hillside a fair amount to get the space needed for the foundation and proper drainage away from the building. A retaining wall is in the plans for this fall where the raw dirt is at the corner of the building. The yellow raspberry patch is between the building and the treeline. There’s a shade cloth over the greenhouse to keep it from overheating.

The baby chicks and ducklings are hanging out at the near end of the building, which is the coop. They’re be ready to graduate outside soon.

The first evergreen trees we planted over 15 feet tall. This year we put in another 25 trees to extend the windbreak farther south. A different neighbor is farming the field, a dairy farmer with Organic Valley.

2023

We added a tunnel of trellises south of the greenhouse, and a large chicken run east of the coop and greenhouse. The windbreak trees are getting taller, and we extended the tree line farther south, past the top of the small hill. There are also two small seasonal coops – one north of the house, and one in the east orchard.

The trellises have grapes on the west side, and flowers on the east side. Two out of five trellises grow annual vining crops, like pole beans or cucumbers. We had our first big harvest of grapes in 2023. There’s a big patch of blackberries north of the coop, and we had a bumper crop of blackberries in 2023.

December 23, 2023 – the exterior of the new outbuilding is done. Now the guys are finishing the interior. It will be fully insulated, and has an overhead door for the tractor on the south side. The wood working area is in the northwest corner, and there will be stairs in the northeast corner to a loft storage area.

Our Homestead – The House

The house looked pretty raw and rough when primary construction officially wrapped up – no deck, no greenhouse, no slab, no retaining walls near the front door. Some things we finished ourselves, like the deck. Others we contracted out, like the concrete work.

Now it’s a whole lot greener and a whole lot busier. At right, although it’s hidden behind the pole beans, the attached greenhouse is finished. There are also two retaining walls to keep the hill in place.

We have a stash of wood under the deck. The deck itself runs the whole length of the house, with stairs at each end and wrap around access from the front door. Just out of frame to the left are the solar water heating panels.

The front door looks a bit more welcoming.

Our Homestead – Where We’re Headed

Our homestead, like our needs and dreams, is always evolving. Long term we’re looking at teaching classes and diversified income from value added specialty products. Maybe northern kiwi jam will turn out to be a hit, or seaberry sauce, or organic Siberian pea shrub chicken feed? (There are other planting areas around the homestead that I didn’t cover in this post. You can see a full site overview in the post The Homestead Permaculture Project.

We’re not sure if the boys will stay on site, or other friends or family will join us. The only thing I know for sure is that there will always be plenty to keep us busy, and I hope to keep sharing snippets of our projects online for many years to come.

How have your homestead and homesteading dreams changed over the years? Leave a comment and share your story.

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