Virtual Tour of the New Property

I finally found some time between unpacking boxes and chasing after Junior to snap a few photos of the property (ahem, Junior took a nap and I traded the box cutter for my very dusty camera). First and foremost, let me say that I absolutely love our house/property! Although I kept my mouth shut, I had what I assume is the usual trepidation everyone has when they sign closing papers. Did we do the right thing? Should we have kept looking? Will the commute be okay?

Not to fret, the very first sunset I got to see eased my concerns, and then waking up the next morning to peace, quiet, and a stunning view put a huge smile on my face. I am in love with our new farm and cannot wait to see it evolve into the property of our dreams.

Below is the existing site. This photo was from 2011 though, so there is currently no strip grazing going on. I am actually shocked to see that the pasture was in use in 2011 because the fencing is completely unusable at the moment. So either it fell in massive disrepair shortly after this photo was taken, or whoever kept animals on it didn't care too much if they got injured or escaped. Given some people's idea of livestock management around here, either of those two later options is entirely possible.

Existing site aerial from 2011 (the garage looking thing labeled garden, is actually a garage. Silly me, I didn't save my photoshop document before exiting, and I don't have the time right now to go back and re-do the whole thing).

The property is a total of 5 acres. There is approximately 2.5 acres in the big pasture, and the remainder is the dry lot, house, garage, garden beds and yard. We plan to turn the area that is currently lawn between the house and the road into an outdoor arena. I will probably put a round pen somewhere in the drylot area. Those are the two flattest areas, hence the locations. As for grazing, I will keep the drylot area functional since the run-in is on the side of the barn, but I plan on running a paddock paradise track around the perimeter of the pasture, and then just keep the center area for hay and winter paddock use. My hope is that I can avoid actually ever having to drylot the horses.I am interested in giving the paddock paradise track a go, but I'm a little bit skeptical about it as I've never seen one in use. We shall see.

The Barn. 1500sf Pole Barn.

Run-in shelter. Currently four "stalls".

Run-in feeder.

Automatic heated waterer. It works, but need some repair to fix a leak.

Dry lot at the back of the barn.
Not sure what the little square fenced area in the drylot was for.

Inside the barn. The weird steel rack will be going away soon.
Finally, covered trailer parking! Room for four stalls to be built.

Insulated tack/feed room.

Future feed room.

Future tack room. Oh, so roomy!

View of the pasture from the front of the barn.

Existing 6 wire, post & wire fencing.
Needs repair, tensioning, top rail, and hot wire.

What will be a 100 x 200' outdoor arena at some point (there is an
existing outdoor arena at the 15-acre community park I can use in the time being).

That about wraps up the photo tour. I have a lot of projects to keep me busy for a while, including organizing the tack room. The highest (barn related) priority though, is fixing up the fence so that I can get a horse sooner than later. Fingers crossed it would be nice to have a fuzzy nose again to pet this fall.

I will be doing a more posts on the farm blog over the next month if you want to see more about the property and all of our renovation projects that we have planned for the house and landscape. www.fastforksfarm.blogspot.com.

Happy trails and swooshing tails!
•Renee•