This Place is WILD

My Little Mountain

Very technical drawing**

The property is STEEP. The highest point being somewhat in the centre and the lowest being near the spring. The elevation difference is about 300 feet.

Spending all of your time on uneven ground is a surprisingly good workout! I suddenly found all of these new muscles and they were SORE. Little stabilizer muscles in my ankles and knees, ones that do not get used on sidewalks and pavement. When I went to town the flat ground felt terribly strange. Oddly, my knees and hips seem to prefer the wonky ground.

I spend most of my time in the southeast corner. It all began here because it’s more easily accessible from the road and was relatively flat and open. Relative to the rest of the property that is. The Northwest corner is nearly impossible to get to. It is SO treed and SO steep! I still haven’t been there.

Clearing my own little yard was a process. I need space for playing and and tinkering! Though it was fairly open there were lots of shrubs and bushes to cut down. I use a weed whacker with a blade attachment for that. It’s a scary but effective tool. The yard is on a southwest slope, which is why I get awesome sunsets most days. I also get late mornings. Lots of time to sit and sip a coffee.

Just a happy little sunset right here

This place has never been a homestead

Some history. My property is surrounded by century old abandoned gold mines. Abandoned during WWI, the men and resources were needed for the war. Nearby you can find mine shafts dug into the stone, a few of them thousands of feet deep! On my property you can find grooves cut out of the earth, ‘troughs’ where the miners would chase quarts veins looking for gold. Did they find anything? I may never know. It’s awesome to think that people have been here, and spent their time here, lusting after a golden payday.

I’ve learned a lot about trees since coming here. There are mostly softwoods. Fir, Spruce, Tamarack, and Pine. I also have a couple of stands of Aspen and Cottonwood on the property. The Aspen and the Cottonwoods are known to be water-loving trees so some more investigation in those areas is needed. Maybe I’ll find more water?! We’ll see. Since they’re the only hardwoods I’m hoping to harvest mushrooms in those zones. I’ve done some inoculation experiments and am very looking forward to what might grow this season.