New House

A week ago I moved from Portland out to the country. I scored a pretty sweet deal. I am living in a 3 bedroom house at the entrance to a 140 acre private forest. In exchange for below average rent, I just have to mow the lawn and keep an eye out for funny business. I always dreamed of living somewhere where I could walk out my door and into the woods and now I can.

In this aerial photo courtesy of Google maps, you can see my house and the approximate boundary of the property. It's all available for me to play in! You can learn more about the forest here. It is open to the public for hiking and learning about nature and forestry.


Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what the place is like.

It's kind of wasteful to have such a big lawn, but I've already started planting crops in the raised beds and hopefully I can add more beds next spring.


This is the view from the front porch. Beyond the tree line is a parking lot and facilities buildings. The raised bed full of weeds in the bottom right corner is going get replanted with veggies.


The backyard is pretty nice. I'm going to try to convert the doghouse into a chicken coop. When I get chickens they will free range in the ample fenced in area. And yes, that's a horseshoe pitch. Not sure how much use that will get.


This is the view from the back porch. Last night I sat behind the rail and watched two blacktail deer feed. They made their way from the left side of the field and came all the way to the fence before heading to the blackberry patch out of view on the right side of the picture.


The sky is the limit for this place.

• Hunting? - Hopefully I will be allowed to hunt there this fall
• Room to practice skills (no more tanning bison hides in an apartment)
• Ample materials - I was told more than once I can cut wood and gather pretty much whatever I want
  
• Foraging - From the blackberry patch in my backyard to the apple tree in the front, there is so much out there, I just have to find it
• Homesteading - chickens, garden, wood stove, water well, hunting, goat?

I've been there a little over a week and I've already seen a lot without exploring very much. It's pretty exciting. I hope to get back to posting about projects I'm working on, but first I need internet access and a camera.