Getting to know the place

As I mentioned last week, when you have all the possibilities of a new place, it’s hard to pause and look around before jumping into projects.

One thing I have going for me is that I still have a ton of unpacking and organizing to do, and this week I have my kids with me, so that keeps me from grabbing something simple from the fridge for dinner and spending all my time on projects.

So instead, what I’ve been doing is wandering around looking at things, and just trying to get a feel for the place. Last week, I walked out on my deck right around sunset and just sort of watched the dusk darken, felt the wind change as the sun’s impact went away, and listened to the squirrels and birds in the trees. This week, I’ve spent some time wandering around the property, especially parts that are “down the hill” behind the house, looking at which trees are which, and which ones look like they’re dead, and looking at some of the lower plants, trying to figure out what they are, and what I might want to replace them with.

I also stumbled on what I thought might have been a spring down there. There’s a depression in the land, maybe where a really big tree rootball had been but long ago fallen over and hauled or rotted away. At the bottom, there’s a bit of a soggy spot. Several weeks back, I wandered down there and realized that the water in there was slowly rippling, like it was flowing. So I filed it away as something to investigate further, as it had been raining a lot the few days before then. So last weekend, when I was poking aorund down there, I went and peeked at the hole. It’s still damp, but no sign of flowing water, so I almost certainly don’t have a spring, just a depression where the water that soakes in over the land flows up to the surface on it’s way down to the creek off beyond my property.

I also need to figure out where to put in a compost pile. I know I want to compost, because I don’t have trash or recycling service, so I’ve been dropping my trash in a parking garage trash can at the office, and there’s a recycling dumpster near here, but I’m hoping to minimize the trash by composting as much as possible. One option is what looks like a raised bed that is between my garage and carport. It doesn’t make sense as a planting bed, because the carport is southeast of the garage, so it shouldn’t get much light. So I may just throw compost into that most days. I’m guessing it was a planter originally, but when the put in the carport, they never bothered to remove it.

It will be interesting to see how things change as it warms up and the trees and shrubs leaf out. I can see one neighbor’s house, and probably always will be able to, because it’s directly behind my (standalone) garage, so there’s a lot of clearing between here and there, and I can sometimes see another one, which I’m pretty sure is the next one beyond that neighbor, but I’m pretty sure when the leaves come on, it’ll be out of sight. But also, behind the neighbor who’s house I can see, there’s… something. I think most of what I can see is a storage container, but there’s also some vehicles, and maybe a trailer. I can see that from my office, though not clearly, and with all the trees between here and there, I assume it’ll be hidden too, but only time will tell.

I keep watching the sun, trying to guess (or use phone programs to see) where it’ll be during the summer. I don’t have any idea how much light I’m really going to have.

Anyway, it’s nearing sunset, so I guess I’ll end this now and go watch it. See you all next week.

• Homesteading
• Starting-From-Scratch