What’s been going on?

Yeah, what have I been up to this year?

I’ve hardly had a chance to write a thing about what’s been going on this year, I’ve just been so busy and I’ve been keeping a low profile.  At the very end of 2014, we purchased 75+ acres across the street from the farm with an 1840 farmhouse.  It’s been a great addition, but it has required an enormous amount of work and there is so much more to do.  We’ve got lots of big plans for the place as a community center for art and as a farm incubator and permaculture homestead — way more details to come.

For now, I’ve been focusing on getting the house habitable.  Previously, it had been vacant and in need of a lot of repair.  Since it was an historic working farm, it had fields, but so much of it had grown into forest over the last few decades.  I was able to clear a 2-3 acres by mowing and another forest 4-5 acres have been patch cut to return them to working fields.  We’re planning to do a timber stand improvement harvest in the remaining woodlot in 2016 to bring that forest into a better management practice.  There are lots of cool things in there from a couple of stands of old growth forest, to abandoned trucks, a wetland and a grave. Come by to check it out sometime & I’ll take you for a walk in the woods.

We’ve got a head start in turning the place into a permaculture homestead with established raspberries, apple trees, currants, grapes, gooseberry and a mammoth pear tree.

Here are a few photos to show what has been going on: