Things are finally starting to get settled in the new house. What with the Billy landing on my foot unexpectedly, we’ve set up my office space upstairs and I’ve worked from there the past week. Day by day, Tracy and I are unpacking this or that, and taking care of putting things more in place.
An interesting thing I hadn’t thought of much is how items settle into their final place just by virtue of being used. I get sugar from the sugar pot, put it back on the kitchen counter, and that’s where it ends up being: a place where I naturally end up looking for it and end up putting it. Little by little, the house is getting more use and as a result feels more homely.
Today, we got a hedgehog house in, in the hopes of moving the hedgehog mother and two children that have been camping out in a vase in the garden. The vase is right in the middle of our backyard, and we hope by offering them a much nicer place to stay that they’ll be motivated to move there. While we can’t plant anything right now, we are looking forward to preparing the space for spring, so that we can plant prepared.
All in all, things are looking up for the house.
Ah yes, letting things find their place ‘organically’ is a much better way to organise your spaces.
Also, you can start planting things right away – in fact, any bulbs have to be planted around now.
Ah, you misunderstand me regarding planting, which makes sense as you didn’t know what we’re going for or what our situation is.
Firstly, the garden space itself is not prepared; the previous owner almost fully tiled up the backyard, blocking so much usable space except for a small section that currently houses the hedgehog. The front yard was covered in small stones and turns out to have a tarp underneath to block growth. So, before we can start planting, we’re needing to fully rework both spaces to something we can work with.
Secondly, what we’ll be using our space for is crops and homesteading, and growing season is over for pretty much everything except parsley, radishes, lettuce, and garden cress, all of which would have to be sown in a greenhouse, which we don’t yet have. On top of that, we’re still getting a soil test kit to know what the condition of the soil here is, so that we know how to safely grow food.
Moreover, we’ll need to turn both areas into a more inclusive space, constructing raised beds and vertical farming areas to help with waist-height accessibility. In the long run, we’ll want a greenhouse as well, and potentially a small aquaponics bay, but those are more future dreams than anything else. Either way, both the space and the soil need quite some work before it’s ready for planting season.