More central drive clearing and the establishment of the first trail into the property. The plan is to establish connector trails that lead from the central driveway and link to each of the property borders. The north connector trail is the first of these inroads.
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While a little late, this video will show you the beginning of our driveway progress. This enabled us to park in the center of the land, off the road on our own property. It was the beginning of the "fridge trail" and "south line link trail" making easier access to the entire property. August was a long, hot month. The hottest August we've had since living in Florida. It definitely gives meaning to the term dog days of summer. In looking back on what we accomplished over the last month it's quite amazing. In no particular order:
While the heat tried it's best, it didn't beat us. We pushed through and made a lot of progress. Stay tuned - September is going to be so much fun!!! Today we set our four corner posts. This was a pretty simple task that was made more difficult due to extreme heat conditions and limited vehicular access. We persevered and completed the task.
Our corner posts were purchased through the local dock maker and are basically marine-grade pylons. Each post is no less than 7 inches in diameter and hand dug to a depth of 3 foot deep, back filled and packed tight with a 60 pound bag of Sackrete. From start to finish it took us about 4 hours to complete this milestone task. Sitting at home, clean, comfortable, and toasting with a glass of wine in the air conditioning, it's starting to really sink about how important this job was for us today. Any good project starts with a solid cornerstone - today we laid four of them. The foundation for our fence and ultimately, our farm.//tr This video shows the south border and completes the preliminary tour of the land. Next up will be setting fence posts!!! This tree was 65 feet tall, circumference at cut was 58" and it was only a 42 year old sand pine. Unfortunately, it would impede on the fencing progress, and contribute to fire risk with dropping it's dead, shaggy, dry branches. Such is life, some monuments both made-made and natural must yield to progress. In other words folks, you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet. The third in a three part series of articles that will give you some insight as to why we chose this particular piece of property.
When chronicling any endeavor or adventure it’s always best to start at the beginning. This certainly holds true when it comes to establishing a sustainable farm in ten acres of heavily wooded Florida pine scrub. Property hunting certainly calls for some selection criteria. It also demands some soul-searching, vision and a very good sense of humor. The property hunt and how we finally settled on purchasing the land we did is as good a starting point as any. Here’s what made our latest purchase the right place at the right time. Elevation/Contour/Shape This criteria ties a bit back into the access criteria. Elevation in Florida is rare, but is important for all the previous reasons mentioned. Now, couple this with the fact that we wanted to stay coastal (within 20 miles of Gulf) due to sea breeze, and things start to fall apart. Fortunately for us there is a bit of undulation in our county that provides a bit of elevation for safety. While elevation in a potential hurricane is easy for most to understand, contour--not so much. With elevation comes some contour, but not necessarily a lot. Well, to understand contour as a criteria some local climate experience is necessary past the USDA growing zone guide. What if I told you that the area we’re in gets just as much (if not more) rain annually as Seattle, yet xeriscaping landscape design is still advised? Water conservation in our parts is reality. Capturing and controlling water so it seeps rather than runs is essential and contour makes that possible. The last criteria was the desired shape of the plot. We wanted to be able to easily subdivide the property into chunks for cultivation and eventually individual livestock paddocks. Badly misshapen lots often make for wasted space with costly perimeter fencing bills. Ultimately contour and usage will shape the internals of the property, but perimeter boundaries are easier to define and maintain when the overall layout is in a uniform shape. Square or rectangular property is just easier to define. Lastly, a square or rectangular property is easy to separate from the bordering properties (in our case, other heavily wooded and unmaintained lots) with fire lines and roads. In the pine scrub of Florida wildfires start quickly and run rampant through decades of dry branches and matted pine needles on the forest floor.//mr We thought it might be fun to give you all a monthly wrap-up of what we have accomplished. We started working on our 10 acres July 12, 2014. We had a 10 day plan in place, that we met and continued onto our next set of goals. The most important goals were to clear the borders so that we could essentially walk completely around our property. We also wanted to carve out a parking area so that we could park on our own land instead of in the right-of-ways.
Our next set of goals included creating a path so that we could easily walk to the northern border from our parking area. Future goals will include paths to the west and south borders. We are quite proud of ourselves for meeting our first set of goals.//tr The second in a three part series of articles that will give you some insight as to why we chose this particular piece of property. When chronicling any endeavor or adventure it’s always best to start at the beginning. This certainly holds true when it comes to establishing a sustainable farm in ten acres of heavily wooded Florida pine scrub. Property hunting certainly calls for some selection criteria. It also demands some soul-searching, vision and a very good sense of humor. The property hunt and how we finally settled on purchasing the land we did is as good a starting point as any. Here’s what made our latest purchase the right place at the right time. Wooded/Raw The second major criteria we had for any potential property purchase was that we wanted something raw with plenty of trees. You know, a relatively untouched and wooded lot. Why? Well, several reasons, but primarily due to climate concerns. We are in a subtropical environment (USDA growing zone 9B) and the sun is very intense. The premium that shade offers is evident when driving past some of the commercial nursery growing operations. Growers utilizing acres of irrigation under shade cloth in order to protect young plants isn’t unusual. The natural shade wooded acreage affords calls for no major infrastructure investments other than some strategic trimming and clearing.
For us, selective cutting and clearing was something we were willing to invest time in doing. Creating “edge effect” through removal rather than planting and waiting just seemed like a better option. Gotta be thinking Michelangelo’s David here. No way is there room for anything other than a full piece of marble. No pre-shaped slab is going to do (hold that thought). On a practical note, wooded lots in our area are often undervalued and overlooked. Many potential buyers looking for acreage are horse-loving retirees relocating to a hobby farm with pasture. The last thing many of them can do is clear land themselves or waste precious time waiting for it to be cleared. Also, land clearing is expensive and a good way for capable people to save a bit of coin when starting out. So, concentrating on wooded acreage took some of the property competition (the overpaying horse crowd) out of the equation. Now, back to Michelangelo. Raw, vacant land was just about the only non-negotiable criteria. Why? Because we wanted to put ourselves in the best position to work WITH the land. We want to make sure we’re in a position to become the best stewards of our plot possible. Rarely is there a perfect piece of property, so why complicate things even further by having to accept a previous owner’s incongruous vision? Again, something that was just a non-negotiable in our view. So, with an untouched wooded/raw lot, the prices in our geography is more realistic and much less open to any bidding competition. With our fully wooded lot in the raw we’re also able to take our time or open things up full-throttle as we see fit. No wasted time repairing old buildings or broken systems. In essence, our full-sized marble slab is ready and waiting to be chiseled and shaped into our masterpiece.//mr |
About UsIn 2014 a couple of 40-somethings decided to make a change. The purchase of 10 raw, pine scrub acres along Florida's Nature Coast started it all. This is that story. Archives
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