In a very perfect world, I would be able to leave ponies or some other hoofed creature up in our very front area to eat all this lovely greenery down! But we are just too close to a fairly busy road with a lot of semi truck traffic and the animals are never comfortable up there. So, we either have to be with them constantly, as in with a lead rope and a calm presence, or we have to mow and bag and bring the cuttings to everyone like a bag lunch!
It’s really not too bad, except when we let it get a little long in the tooth because of the spring rain and our busy schedule! Someday, I really hope we can get a riding mower, because it is a pretty good amount of mowing and using the push mower does make the task a little, well, daunting. Boring as well. Our frontage is 300 feet, and it seemed to take a few hours at least to do the front, front side and the courtyard and driveway area. Sometimes we do part and then do the rest another day.
Harley and Angus are enjoying a bag full of fresh clippings. Apparently, it’s not a bad thing to give them clippings, just don’t let them pile up in a huge pile and mildew or rot. Only give them what they can easily eat pretty quickly. So the boys up front get one bag. And the pigs gets a couple bags. The sheep and goats get the bulk of it and the ponies get a bag, maybe two if they are really digging in. The ponies are actually the most likely to get a belly ache from the damp or moldy grass, so they get the least. But then, they are the easiest to bring up front and hand graze… so they are not short changed. 
As you can see… it was getting a pretty good grow on! In the courtyard, it was getting pretty long. I can’t wait until we can get a bit of fence back up by the lion there. Then we could put the ponies in there a lot easier. They don’t seem to like eat the bushes and flowers. Not when there is lovely green grass to crop. I can sometimes put a few sheep in there, but never goats. They go straight for the peonies and the other pretties!!!
Our only tulips in the whole homestead! Can you believe it? We do have a lot of tiger lillies and some daffodils in the dog yard that I’d like to dig up and move around some, but only this one little set of tulips. The girls and I hope to remedy that this fall. We want to try and plant about 500+ tulips and other spring bulbs around the place… just dress it up some for the spring! We have such plans, some day this place is going to be very pretty and very nicely planted! But everything takes time.
If money was no object, I think a little porch would be really nice out here on the side of the house, near the driveway. Just enough for a little rocking chair and porch glider action. It’s a very nice cool part of the yard, no animals, just cars. We can sit and watch the traffic a bit. Or the sunset. Storms rolling in. I just think our old house would be so perfect with a porch. I’d love to sit out there shelling peas or shucking corn, or just sipping a cold beer on a hot summer evening. It would be lovely.
Hoping this year to score some fantastic budget bushes for the front of the house. There has been pretty much nothing up there since we moved in. We do have our little Japanese cherry trees on either side of the steps, but that’s about it. Its heavily mulched and we have finally beat back the bad weeds that have tried to take over the house a few times. But now, I would love to see some nice bushes up there, to brighten the space and also to grow up a bit and shade the front of the house from passerbys. Whenever there is a train, which is about 6 to 10 times a day, the traffic can back up and then all these people sit and look in our house. It does get a little weird at times. I think some nice lilacs and forsythia bushes would be lovely, as well as a few evergreen sorts of things… just to sort of break up the front a bit… it would be lovely. And maybe some nice hydrangea in between to add a little pretty flowering color. It’s a plan… maybe someday! Slowly… we will watch for sales!
Well, just a little tour of the front… it’s always sort of neglected in the whole photo journal experience of our homestead! We just don’t spend a lot of time out there, really. I know the steps need to be painted again… And the front door. I was thinking of doing something fun, like a rich plum color for the door! And maybe blackish gray for the steps! How modern… Stunning I hope! We have some new lamps to try and hang on the light out front. Just has to move up the priority list!
We need a handy man! haha…. that would be lovely.
Pin It
Our fruit plantings are doing well, and that is good. Just gotta get things ready to go for the veggies!