Centers...

Ah, the room... The present center of my most industrious activities these days. It's a disaster area. If you can believe it, this is a shot after two weeks of cleaning and packing. It's actually looking better today, I'll get some more pictures of it this weekend.



Shoot. The resolution on this is really tiny... This is "the middle." The center of my families' 8 acres. There's a fire pit on the ground just out of view. When the land was first purchased by my grandfather, it was all weeds. It'd been cleared and farmed at one point and I recall that it'd been pasture at one point too. In the southwest corner there was a large pit and the typical collection of rocks [glacial erractics] cleared before farming took place. In the northwest, there was a swampy swale. In "the middle" an overgrown swale that held water almost the entire year. In it was 8 large cotton wood trees and a swamp willow. We cleared it out, drained it, and it eventually became the well-shaded, fire-pit endowed, summer camping retreat and communal barbeque.

From the left to right:

The picture starts off looking west towards the road. The first house you see belongs to my aunt and uncle. Panning further to the right, behind the twin cotton woods and the poorly stacked wood pile is my grand parents house. Just to the right of that, behind the small orchard, is my grandfather's garden and pole barn. Next you will see me and my sister's playset. Then, my house! It's rather austere looking from the north [and yes, that's polyvynal siding...], but that's because the house is designed to maximize solar gain in the winter, and therefore, the north side has virtually no windows. [Actually, all the houses were either designed by--or based-on in the case of our house--a local architect who was using passive solar heating, earth berms, and natural ventilation to reduce heating and cooling costs. The garage is actually an addition we put on over a decade ago. Then there's my father's pole barn [and its new addition].



And I just really like this one...