Looking Back

Hi Everyone! I apologize for the delay in posting. I have been working on a project needed by EGLE for getting our permits to do the permaculture landscaping for the pond and gathering areas that we’ve been working on these last several years.

After going through an engineering company for our first meeting with EGLE earlier this spring, Dan and I were given a quote by the engineer for $11,000 to do a “forensic wetland analysis” to see whether the land had been a wetland before we started work on it. I felt this was incredibly ridiculous, as the land was simply a farm field when we began, with no wetland biology on it at all, and because we had already started a pond on the land, we had created a wetland which is the habitat they are now seeing and trying to claim we can’t disturb because it is a wetland. After our initial meeting with EGLE when we explained that we are trying to RESTORE habitat, not develop it (other than a small off-grid building), they started to get the picture, but we still have to give evidence that it was not a wetland before we began work. Thankfully, we have mounds of photographic evidence to send them, but it is requiring me to go through thousands of our photos of the land and sort out the ones from this particular area.

It occurred to me that you all might enjoy seeing some of these pictures too. So I am thinking of doing a series of posts showing the front field over the years and how it has progressed. The pictures in this post are from the year we moved onto the land – 2013. At the time, we weren’t thinking of taking pictures as photographic evidence for the field, so the photos are of our family and relatives that also show what the field looked like.

(You can kind of see the line behind Dan and Brennah where the yard stops and the field begins.)

(The chickens we brought with us from South Florida, with the field in the background.)

(More of the field in the background)

(Niece and nephews visiting us at our new house)

(Summertime – warrior cousins with the field full of ragweed in the background. This is one of my all-time favorite pictures.)

(Hanging out in the field of Round-up resistant ragweed. It was almost the only thing that would grow in the soil that first year.)

(Warriors can also give good hugs.)

(The beginning of our beloved fire circle.)

(And so it begins.)

(The little guy in the red and white chair helped us plant quite a few trees in our food forest and windbreak the following year. One of our biggest spruces I still call “Conor’s tree.”)

I hope you have enjoyed this look back at where it all began!

With gratitude,

Jean