Welcome to our acreage, we're glad you are here!
We would like to welcome you to our acreage and give you an idea of why we started this blog. First a little background. My husband Kyle and I have lived on 10 acres since 2013 and it has been an eye-opening adventure. We were city people with a house and a small neighborhood plot of land. We hired professionals to install, repair or improve almost anything and everything around our house. We did enjoy maintaining our yard after the foundation was laid and we took great pride in keeping it looking amazing. We loved working on projects but we had run out of room. OK, that's not the reason that we bought 10 acres but it was part of it.
When we moved to our acreage we made a vow to learn how to build and fix whatever needed to be done. It hasn't always been easy and we have asked for help along the way. The great thing is that we have surprised ourselves at how much we could actually do! I decided to start this blog to create a community of other acre-dwellers that could learn alongside us. We found that the internet has been our most helpful tool and we hope that we can return the favor.
Our new acreage consisted of a house and a half-built shed when we moved in. To date, we have added several improvements.
- A building that stores our tools, lawnmower, swim spa, and miscellaneous stuff. It also doubles as a basketball court and indoor workout facility for our teenage son.
- A chicken coop (AKA the chicken mansion)
- A raised bed garden
- A small fenced in yard for Bear (our Australian Shepherd, Terrier, Lab mix)
- A small fire pit
I have so many projects on the To-Do List and I can't wait to share them with you.
Whether you have half an acre or more than 10 there is something here for everyone.
The picture above is from one of the many sand plum bushes that we found in the Spring after we moved in. We had no idea what they were and we had never even tasted a sand plum but they were in abundance so we knew we had to do something with them before the birds ate them all. We began to pick them and watched videos about how to make sand plum jelly. It was one of the first skills that we learned when we moved. That is the only year that we have been able to harvest the sand plums. Late hail storms have taken them out several years. And other years the birds have gotten them before I had a chance to pick any. I still have family and friends ask me every year if I've made more jelly so hopefully this will be the year of the sand plum return.
I look forward to getting to know you,
Stephanie