Aerial View

Last night, Phil was moving the man lift to its next location when he wondered what it would be like to go all 45 feet up. A totally different view. "We've done a lot!" he said.

So, to give you a sense of what the farm is like, from the air, we offer the following.

Our driveway is about halfway between the north and south borders. We have a parking area under the tree in the foreground; the pump house and well are next to that, and then the metal building. Across the driveway is the apple orchard.

In the dead center of this photo, the neighbors to the north have cows graze their pasture; a fine line of white fence posts runs between the two properties. (And in the bottom right, you can just spot the red gate, opened and welcoming.)

Moving over a bit, this photo shows the finger, the main part of our living area. The apple trees come down to the truck; unstaked pears are planted behind the truck. You can see the metal electrical box and electrical panel, as well as the satellite internet dish. To the left of the van is our trash pile and odds and ends pile; next to the blue tractor, not really visible but still there, is the compost we purchased, where the boys have run trucks and dug trenches for much of the last year. The bright orange, near the center is the chipper, and behind that, the little greenhouse where we had grow mats last year and a few this year. The big greenhouse dwarfs the little, covered greenhouse.

If you follow the ridge of the greenhouse, the yellow splash of color is the cover for the beehives, and the overrun moon garden rings it. The huge bonfire to burn the bad weed left the red hole to the right of the beehives. Our road to the lower pasture runs in front of the big greenhouse, swirls to the left of the beehives, then swings slightly right again. In this photo, we have the white barn, then the motor home, and right above the motor home is the hen house, now abandoned. Next to the barn is the house trailer, then the storage/office trailer, and the tree Jadon climbs. In the foreground we have extra lumber, the site of a future pond, the beautiful curve of the swales, and the Holland chicks.

Looking almost directly down, the future peach orchard. We've cut swales in two different spots: the red streaks are, I think, former swales that Phil has mown over: eventually they will be cut back down to size, but for now, it's not the most attractive. Where the greenery gets taller, near the upper third, is the row of five plums, and we hope to eventually have a little pond right at the tree line. The two white buckets at the left are next to the gate between our land and the land to the south. When the cows pass from the south to the north, Phil runs them through the chute there: a little red bucket hangs on the gate to the chute. The land to the south (like the land to the north) keeps improving: you can see how good the neighbor's pasture looks, compared with the floor of the future orchard (the difference between warm season grasses and weeds).

And, for good measure, the Blue Ridge mountains peaking up over the trees across the road. From our land, all we see is green: but forty-five feet up, it's a cute little glimpse.

Back on the ground: the beige corner trim, with Abraham demonstrating the 12' walls. (Not 13' as I said earlier this week. Inadvertent exaggeration.)