Great Neighbors! – Murphy's Law Ranch

Before we get into the progress made this weekend, we have to take a few minutes to brag on our neighbors. As many of you know, our main focus since buying our property has been clearing around the foundation so our drafter has full access to get precise measurements. Our yard (not to be confused with our fields) has been in desperate need of attention. It’s obvious it hasn’t seen a mower at all this year. Since we are not yet living at the farm, we have no equipment out there and discussed hiring a landscape company to bush hog our yard. It just hadn’t happened yet. Well….surprise! Our neighbors took care of it this past week! They knew it was on our to-do list, but we had more pressing things to take care of first. So they crossed it off our list for us. We offered to pay them, reimburse them, anything. The answer was simply ‘nah, that’s what we do out here.’ Y’all, how did we get so lucky??? So many, many, many thanks to our awesome neighbors!!!

Standing near the foundation, looking towards the road (and the awesome neighbor’s property). Last week, this was over knee high and thick and folded over.

With the grass all knocked down, it was so much easier for us to get around the sides and back of the foundation to remove all of the brush. The patio was completely surrounded by black locust trees. For those of you who don’t know about black locust, it is EXTREMELY invasive. It’s actually a member of the bean family (weird, right?), so it’s a great nitrogen fixer. However, it spreads very fast and is almost impossible to kill. And it has nasty thorns…both of us are covered in cuts from removing dozens of these stupid trees. Apparently, mature black locust trees are not nearly as thorny and are much sought after by woodworkers. There must be a mature tree along our creek since there were so many young trees around our foundation. In addition to the black locust, there were so many other plants and vines. We cut down everything and then realized some of the vines are black raspberry vines…so hopefully those come back next year. Prepare yourself for lots of pictures!

That’s our patio. When the house was standing, this was completely enclosed and used as a garden/tropical plant room (or so we’ve been told). It has plumbing and irrigation still in place. At some point down the road, we may put a roof over it and add a fireplace, but for now it will just be a nice, open patio.

Another view of the patio. This is looking towards the house… or what will be the house. The concrete block will be evened out and covered with stone, then a railing will be added around the perimeter.

I can’t even believe this is what the backyard looks like now! A week ago, everything was at least waist-high. The giant pile is all the black locust trees and brush we cleared out. This picture doesn’t begin to do it justice. Once it all dries out, it’ll be burned.

This is probably our favorite feature of the ‘house.’ It looks like a mess in the picture, but it looks a hundred times better than it did a couple days ago. Some of the top stones on the limestone retaining wall have shifted (probably by the demolition crew that tore down the house), so we’ll have to move those back into place. But we love the look of the brick from the original house and are hoping it can be incorporated into our new house.

After cutting back the vegetation last week, a lot of it is starting to die off. Now you can see the pond. We think the liner is still there, so we just need to reset some rocks.

This is the stream that flows from the pond. It definitely needs some stone work, but it’s nice to be able to see what we’re working with now.

With everything cut and dying back, the front porch is on full display. We are still unsure if we’re going to use the front porch; it mostly depends on what our drafter comes up with. If we don’t use it, we will try to use the stones for something else, as a little homage to the original house.

It’s been hard to see just how big the basement is because of all the vegetation growing in and around it. This picture was taken standing on the patio looking down into the basement. At some point before construction starts, we’ll have to sweep and power wash the basement floor and remove the old tile. There is existing plumbing for a full bathroom and a kitchen, as well as a sump pit and lift station for the septic.

We love seeing these pollinators already making themselves at home on our farm! They will be much needed next year. We haven’t seen many honey bees, but are hopeful we can attract them once we have some flowers in and around our fields.

We have skinks! They are insectivores and eat all sorts of pests…and have no interest in eating plants. Another great little creature to have on the farm. They really like to hide in our rocks and sun themselves on the patio.

We had a list of stuff to get done before the trailer arrives. We still don’t have a definite moving date for the trailer yet, but we’ve nearly finished our entire list. Last thing to do is clear out the creek bed over to the well, so we can get a water line run for the trailer. That does not mean there is nothing else to do, it just means the most pressing chores are done. Since those chores had the biggest visual impact, the next few blogs may not have many pictures (or at least not many pictures with a wow factor).

On the drive home today, we were talking about how nearly everyone we’ve met has been so kind and genuine and welcoming, and how we can’t imagine living anywhere else. It’s hard to believe we skipped over this property several times and then had to visit it several times before deciding to buy it. Throughout the buying process there were so many things that had to go perfectly right for it to be ours. And we said then if everything went through without a hitch, we knew it was meant to be. Yet it seems every time we’re working at the farm we receive some little reaffirmation of our decision. Our community has accepted us and we’ve been presented with some possible business opportunities we never could’ve imagined. There is a peace that comes over us both when we’re there, and it already feels like home. We’re 100% sure we ended up right where we’re meant to be. So thanks to the big man upstairs for knowing exactly what we needed even when we didn’t.

Peace, Love, & Farming,

The Murphy’s

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