this is the post for country folks who want to know about the outside








The parcel is slightly larger than 5 acres, in a fat L-shape (I'll post the satellite image when SCOPI comes back online, it's being tweaky tonight), with the house and driveway at the top of the L (to the east), and the pasture on the bottom.   

To the east of the house, literally across the road, is Ebey Hill, which locals call Ebey Mountain; the altitude rises from  330 feet above sea level at the house, to 350 feet at the top of the driveway, to 1650 feet at the top of the hill less than a half-mile to the east.  Yes, very steep.   The mountain is covered with logging roads and game trails that I hope will keep us and the horses busy for the next 40 years.  

Speaking of horses, there is no barn yet.  There is a small outbuilding that we can use to store hay at first, so that the horses can move in as soon as the fences are properly installed. We will build a small barn at the northeast corner of the pasture area, with pasture to the south and west.  We walked the pasture on the wettest day of winter (so far) and were very pleased at the lack of sogginess!  The sellers have kept the pasture in hay, but there hasn't been livestock here since the old dairy subdivided more than 20 years ago.  There are horses next door, and many other horses on the road, so we'll have plenty of equine neighbors.

There is plenty of neighboring wildlife as well.  Today was snowy, so we caught up on a lot of footprint gossip around the house, spotting tracks from deer, mice, moles, rabbits, raccoons, as well as tracks from the neighbor's cats and the seller's dog Daisy.   We also expect to see plenty of bluejays, eagles, hawks, and vultures when the sky isn't full of snow.

There are a number of outbuildings on the property, including a woodshop (soon to be Jim's computer lab) the pump house, and a woodshed, plus the afore-mentioned hay shed.  There is also a greenhouse that needs to be moved or torn down, a falling-down outhouse that we will take down, and a chicken condo.

At the top of the "L", between the house and the road is the orchard:  apple, pear, cherry and peach, black walnut and hazelnut trees.  There are also blueberry bushes and some winegrape vines that are apparently impossible to kill.  

And of course, there are blackberry vines.  Our first major investment will be a tractor, so we can trample down the blackberry vines on a regular basis...not that this treatment will kill blackberries, but it will at least cause them to speak respectfully in polite company.  We hope.


Comments

  1. aarene, that's awesome. that big mountain for you to ride on!!! and it's just so pretty, living at the base of a mountain. i think the PNW is so unique cuz you have so much land like that - it's straight up and down mountains, and then boom, suddenly it's just pancake flat pasture. and then another straight up, and then another perfectly level pasture. i think that's from floodplains, if i recall my geology correctly. this area of west germany is the opposite, it's all curvy bumpy - no mountains, nothing steep at all, but nothing flat either. makes it nice for a retired horse, but if i were trying to train for endurance, yeesh, i'd have to ride faster and longer.

    i hope the neighbors are nice, and that there is a community there that you can feel safe in. your dogs are gonna love that aren't they?

    i love the little outhouse with the half moon door! what an antique: ) i can't tell which room will be jim's office, funny that both your man and mine are converting outbuildings into offices! (you can see i enlarged all your photos.)

    it frustrates me when people just let their belongings take over a property. ther is no need to just strew your old planters around. i seriously hope the owners will clear it out for you. but if not, document it so you have lots of before and after pics. that way you'll have tons of satisfaction and i'll get to share the experience with you: ) (i like that old copper windchime, i'm definitely bringing mine in my luggage next time i visit seattle. windchimes are unheard of here, strangely.)

    omgosh your orchard sounds awesome. peach? does that grow in WA? i made a list of plants, trees, herbs, and flowers i want to have, and blueberry is high on the list. catnip too, so i can tempt neighbor cats to visit.

    blackberries too? enough you need a tractor? omygoodness.

    what kind of fencing is that? i see tposts (which are too expensive here to be reasonable) but i hope you don't have a barbed wire problem too!

    thanks for sharing!

    ~lytha

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  2. For some reason, there is a perfectly-straight line of T-posts on the north side of the property. They have no fencing attached, it's just posts. Weird. We'll need to take down some of the alder trees that are too close to the line before we string field fencing--there are already a ton of branches on the ground. Plus blackberries, of course, grrr.

    The sellers, Colleen and Duane, speak very highly of most of their neighbors, and I'm looking forward to meeting everyone. Arlington is MY kind of town: the feed store and the awesome hardware store are on the main street!

    When you come to visit, bring your helmet so we can ride!

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