The Mobile Home Woman | Our journey from urban homesteading to rural homesteading at Windhaven farm…

Patio…. Chapter 275

Posted on May 11, 2009 by MobymomMay 11, 2009

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Well, it’s not quite that many chapters but it is beginning to seem that way. We went and got 10 more bags of sand… 500 more pounds of sand. And that’s it. I’m not buying ANYMORE SAND…

We’ve now added over 1,000 pounds of sand to our moby home lot.

Note to self. Don’t dig so dang deep when you want to lay patio stones.

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The “we’re cheap and don’t want to rent a roller” method of tamping down leveling sand. Works pretty good actually.

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Jessy takes a turn at scraping with the 2 x 4. And yes, I did it too! It really works nicely, it kinda scrapes a little off while leveling it out nice too. We didn’t do that last year and I wish we had… it would have been a little nicer.

But it’s pretty nice now!

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We put pea gravel between the stones to keep them nice and in place. And it’s kinda purdy looking. We’re going to put river rock around the outside of the patio when it’s all done.

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And of course… we ran out of patio stones. Yes… no more patio stones.

When the van comes back, we’ll be able to FINALLY finish the Patio that Never ENDS!!!! I can’t wait to get the fire pit out and burn something in celebration on the new $150 patio!!!

Of course, I had hoped it would be more like a $50 patio… hahaha… but nothing ever seems to work out that easily in home remodeling, eh?

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Maggie’s Shrines

Posted on May 11, 2009 by MobymomMay 11, 2009

My daughter Maggie likes to create shrines. Nature shrines. I find them all over our yard. In little tucked away places that mean something…

This is on the grave of the little bird that Luna killed last week.

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And this one is behind the shed and I’m not sure why, but she maintains it with little glass pieces and found pretties and lays flowers on it all tied up neatly with grass. And she installed a little solar light to shine in the dark.

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I tried to get her to tell me more about it, but she won’t.

So I don’t push her. It’s something special and something sacred to her. She says it’s for the pets that have gone. She’s very sensative about her little animal friends. I think it’s wonderful that she cares so deeply for her lost critters. She’s a very deep and sensative child. It’s beautiful.

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And her animals love her very very much.

How can you not love Maggie?

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Measuring up the Moby

Posted on May 10, 2009 by MobymomMay 10, 2009

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CLICK TO SEE… the Large Panoramic Picture

Well… I got to thinking… I was reading the Pathway to Freedom blog, from the Dervaes family in Pasadena, California… and they grow 6,000 pounds of food in their little 1/10th of an acre garden. Wow…. Of course, they are using like EVERY square foot of their space for food mostly, nicely laid out and all, but still, just about every corner is being used.

So I got to wondering… how much space do we have?

On our lot… which is 90 feet by 50 feet… we end up with 4,500 square feet of land. The moby is 14 x 66 and that chews up 924 square feet. (not too shabby… my house I was renting was only 980 square feet and it cost $1000 a month! It did have a basement, but still it was really only a kid cave down there….)

That leaves us with 3,576 of land… minus the shed… about 3,500 square feet.

With our 6 raised beds that we put in… we are under cultivation, 300 square feet. I would estimate another 200 square feet are devoted to flower beds.

I plan to plant on the ugly side of the moby, 5 rows of 50 feet long sweet corn. Next year I think I will put in raised beds on that side because, well, it’s ugly and the lot is empty and I doubt anything will ever go in there. And it’s always hot and sunny over there… good place for planting!

We’re putting in 5 more fruit trees, apples mostly. We have a little peach tree, but I’m not sure it will ever really be able to set decent fruit. It’s just a little too cold here, not warm enough, long enough. I had a peach tree in Perrysburg, and it would set fruit, but they didn’t mature. Just got too cold. But it’s a really pretty little ornamental tree, so it gets a place out by the front.

However, we have a great big orchard just down the road a mile or three and they do a dandy job with apples so I suspect our apples will grow nicely after a couple years. (We’ll definately be doing some pick your own come fall… we love apples!)

So, if the Dervaes family can grown 6,000 pounds annually… I suspect that we can do a nice little dent in our own family needs with our 1/10th of an acre! And if you count the other two lots… which I’m sure we can “borrow” as long as we do it tastefully and take care to not make it look, well, tooooo rough and homespun… we will surely have a nice little place in a couple years! Can’t wait!

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