On the Garden Path at 5~Acre Farm: Pictures of the Farm, Spring 2012, Part One

Friday, March 23, 2012

Pictures of the Farm, Spring 2012, Part One

John came in late this afternoon and asked me to go riding with him around the property. So I grabbed my camera and hopped into the golf cart with him.

I managed to get a few nice pictures before the sun went down, and thought I'd share them with you tonight.

We started our tour near the chicken pen. That's Samantha in the foreground of picture #1. She's grown so much since we got her in December! She's the most fearless little animal I've ever known and an absolute bundle of love!

That's Maggie behind Samantha, watching the chickens, and yes, their "coop" is a dog house! That was John's idea, and it works! If you look close in the first picture, you'll see one of the hens up on the top of the pen. They do that all the time!

In picture #2, we're looking at the chicken pen through the yard fence. That black spot down center is my dad's Scottish Terrier, Chu Chu. All the dogs like to check out the chickens several times daily.

In picture #3, you can see the Crepe Myrtle. It hasn't bloomed yet, but it will be a dark pink when it does. More importantly, behind the Crepe Myrtle, you can see our primary fig orchard. We'll have an abundance of small brown figs ripening in August. Last year, I canned the harvest in a light syrup. This year I might try a fig jam!

Picture #4 is a shot of our back yard looking South to North. That entire row of greenery was fully blooming Forsythia only two weeks ago! In the distance, besides John's blue work van, you can see the chicken kite that John designed and built. Picture #5 is a close up of the kite from the back end. I'll blog more about the chicken kite another time.

Picture #6 is a shot of the back of our house, facing West. The patio is a bit junky right now. We've been doing our spring cleaning and we've gathered a lot of stuff we need to get rid of. John never disposes of anything too quickly, in case it has another use. I'm a household recycler, but John is a recycler of any kind of machinery!

Picture #7 is a close up of two of our three snowball trees. They bloom twice each year, in the spring and in the fall. I absolutely love these trees! As the blooms age, before they turn brown, they are easily blown from the trees by the wind. Once, the petals on the ground gave me an idea, and I gathered a bunch of the petals and strew them all the way up the driveway, as a welcome for my mother, who was on her way over to visit (with my dad). She loved it!

Picture #8 is a shot from the back gate, facing East over the lower part of our property. On the left, at that bunch of trees, are the bee hives. To the left is my father's grapevines. Further back are some storage units, and out of sight, to the left, our greenhouse.

Picture #9 is facing South, along the back fence. Those are Garden hives, 5-frame, that John moved there at the advice of a more experienced beekeeper. John successfully split our three hives into six, and may be able to split again in the next few weeks. On the other side of the hives is our mulch pile. It's three years old and a lot smaller than it was when we got it!

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Picture #10 is of our one and only pear tree. In seasons past, the limbs have been so full of giant round pears that they hung to the ground with the weight. The tree hasn't produced in the last two years, but is showing a lot of fruit this year. Picture #11 is a close up of little tiny pears already filling the branches!

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Picture #12 is a shot of the greenhouse. It sits on the back of the property on the North side. It gets the first rays of sun in the morning, and a good bit of the day's long light. John helped his father build this greenhouse in 1992. Picture #13 is a closer shot of the greenhouse. Those trees in front of the greenhouse are our secondary fig orchard. Yeah, we need to clean out the undergrowth!

It's after 11 p.m., so I think I'll stop here so I can publish this blog before Midnight. My next blog will be a continuation of this one, with plenty more pictures!

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John and Michelle, and 5 Acre Farm

How We Came To Be

John was born and raised in Georgia by parents who lived incredible lives of their own, and passed on to John a rich family history from both sides. He was a die hard Boy Scout, and later, spent 17 years as a Troop Leader. He earned a dual Agriculture/Agricultural Engineering degree at ABAC in Tipton, where he also started the college's radio station. After college, John served on nuclear submarines in the Navy, where he once saved the lives of his shipmates, and, rumor has it, did many incredible things in the service of our country. He married and had a family, and after the Navy, worked briefly with the EPA before opening his own HVAC-Refrigeration company. John was inventive as a child, and that carried over into everything in his life. He is a fixer of severe mechanical problems, and an inventor of all kinds of things that improve on or simplify existing machinery, equipment, and ideas. His inventions are unique, and some of them may some day aide humanity, save lives, and save our planet if we can get the right people to listen.

My dad was career Army. I was born in France, and introduced, at a very young age, to the Virginia countryside, where we raised rabbits and chickens. After dad retired, we moved to North Carolina, his home state, where we spent many years on the coast, near Wilmington. Here, we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, and fished commercially. Our freezer was always full of fresh Spot and shrimp, and oyster roasts were a weekly event! As a young adult I lived with my family in the mountains south of Asheville. Here too we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, as well as geese and peacocks. I worked for many years with an arts council, Christian organizations, and other non-profits. I helped train missionaries, researched/wrote grants, produced professional documents, edited newsletters, and wrote a lot of publicity materials. I already had two Associate degrees, but in my late 30s I finally completed an undergraduate degree in English/Art History. For 20 years I was active in community theater, sang solos with a community choir, and danced with a show choir. Treasured memories! I moved to Georgia in late 1998, and married my first husband in 2002. I was 45. Eighteen months later, I was widowed.

John and I first met in 2000. After I was widowed, and John was divorced, we found each other again. Of like minds, spirits, and goals, our hearts came together quickly, and we married in 2005. Each of us has undergone Elijah House training, and we were both ordained into ministry in 2006. I have been a Christian counselor and prayer warrior for probably 30 years. John and I live to put God first in our lives, and in our dreams for this small piece of earth of which we are the caretakers.

We call our place "5 Acre Farm." John's father took this barren, overworked field from a larger parcel of farmland in the mid-70s. He fenced off about three-quarters of an acre for the house, and added plants, flowers, and trees. Elsewhere, he transformed the property through years of hard work, adding an apple orchard, peach trees, pears, two fig orchards, grape vines, and a greenhouse. John and I have been trying to continue his father's work on this land, adding to it with our own hopes and dreams, and our late-in-life efforts. Not a day goes by that I don't feel great respect for John's father, for the man he was, for the work he did here, and gratitude for the bounty we reap because of his hard work.

John and I are in our 50s, just starting life together, but with age and health trying to work against us. We aren't ready to sit down and take it easy. We have a goal to become self-sufficient by growing our own food (meat and vegetables), and getting off the grid. The challenges we face in doing this are age, health, and finances. John's inventiveness is being strongly applied, as is my gift for budget stretching and frugality. Our strength? The love we have for each other, and the trust that we are working inside the will of God.

One of the things we ask ourselves now and then is this: "Is it worth it?" I never had children. John's son has set his own path with family and career. There does not seem to be anyone we can leave this property to who will continue the work and the dream; one of John's grandchildren, perhaps, but they are very young right now, and do not yet notice or care.

So, is it worth it (all the work and expense) if there is every chance this land will end up in the hands of developers after we're gone? Well, our answer to that question so far is always "Yes, it's worth it." It's worth it to us, because of what we are accomplishing here in our lifetime. It's worth it because what we grow here we share with family, with friends, and with our community. And not just what we grow, but our faith and philosophy, our hopes and dreams, and our very desire to leave at least our little part of the world better than it was when we found it. We are living - consciously, and deliberately - a lifestyle that expresses who we are and what we believe. Does anybody care? Why don't read our blog, leave a comment, and let us know.