Late Winter Dirt-Heart Farmette Update 2019

Some of y’all have been following along on the adventures of the Dirt-Heart family. Here’s the latest update. But first a little recap.

In January of 2015, we moved from our home of 17 years. We’d decided to make at least a short term commitment to raising more of our own food, learning and growing more in the direction of sustainability. We moved from the mountains to the fields, from the 1800 sq ft single-family home, to the 450 sq ft Barn. This building began its life serving as a milking barn for dairy goats, but over the years it was fixed up some, with lighting, drywall, and a woodstove; a bedroom and kitchen and bathroom were created. The long milking parlor with the cement stanchions for the goats became our living room.  Here’s what she looks like on the outside. (I’m not letting y’all see the inside of my house at this stage of the game!)

We have loved living here. The land is amazing, the community is lovely (very small town, but very progressive!), and it looks like we are going to stay.

Our beloved friends who own the property are having to move closer to town for health reasons. What does that mean to us (besides that we will miss them terribly…)? We are moving from The Barn to The Big Yellow House, with an option to buy in the next year or so.

Yes, that is a porch swing partly hidden behind the stone pillar on the left. Yes, those are solar panels on top of the house. Yes, this house is lovely and has the right number of rooms (including TWO bathrooms! Oh, the luxury!) But that’s only the beginning of the story…

Let’s not forget the orchard:

And the raised beds (you can kinda see the green tool shed in the back, the compost bins on the right, and the greenhouse on the far right):

There’s a spring on the property as well (no pics of the spring cuz it’s all poison oak up there right now!) which feeds (along with the rainwater catchment system) into these storage tanks:

There’s an Oak grove too…

AAAAAAAnd two chicken coops, a workshop, goat shed, storage shed, another cabin, and many many possibilities. But really, this is one of the best things, right here:

That’s our evening view, accompanied by a plethora of birdsongs, the hummm of bees, the smell of the trees (and right now, the rain). Not a bad life at all.