DesRosiers Homestead in April

I visited the DesRosiers Homestead last week and it was actually the first time I've seen the place without snow on the ground. While walking around I'm thinking, "My god what have I gotten myself into?". This is the fourth summer that little has been done to the place and man-o-man does it show it. I've got my work cut out for me. Indeed four acres of work.

Some pleasant surprises though. The two trees you see in the picture above are actually black walnut trees and apparantly have a very abundant harvest. I'm already searching the internet for a machine to extract the oil from the nuts. The pond in the back 40 is on wet lands and could be dug out to make it a little bigger and if I did this then it likely would be able to support growing some trout. It has goldfish in it now and they are coming out asap. There are a million Trillium alongside the road way coming into the property. Quite nice. The garden is a lot bigger than what I thought. There is a good picture below as well. You will see it is overrun with weeds but I'm buying a machine for cutting under-brush which will make quick work of the weeds and a roto-tiller will make quick work of the digging. It will be about 800 square feet in size when completed so about 40 ft. by 20 ft. Can't wait to plant our garden.

I didn't take a lot of pictures and most are not very inviting but following are a few of the better ones. The house is scheduled to close on May 8'th and hopefully there will be no problems. Once I get it I'll bring down my tripod and take some really good photos.

Our Garden ... somewhat overrun with weeds after three summers of zero maintenance.

The fenced in area is our garden. It is actually bigger than this in that at the back there is a tall fence which was put up to create a dog run about 6 feet wide. I'm taking this down and the whole area will be garden.

Taken from out in the farmers field ... same with the next few.

We are surrounded by farmers fields on three sides of the property. They are not planted yet and they usually put in soya beans so in a few months they should be all green instead of brown. I'm thinking of planting sunflowers all around the edge of the property to provide a visual block and to add some colour. And if I get a machine to extract the oil from the walnuts I will also be able to extract the oil from the sunflowers.

A little tighter shot of the house. The sunroom windows are still all shuttered up. We will be opening these very early in our stay.

Three pictures of the pond ... also in very bad shape but I found out it is about 20 feet deep so it should be able to support some trout. I might dig it out some more and make it a little bigger. And, of couse, add a fountain. The shack on the left is the pump house for the well.

There are about 3 additional acres of property surrounding the pond which I didn't try to capture with pictures.

A stake marking the back corner of the property. Our land goes back further into the woodlot than what I had thought. Following also are some pictures of the back of the property heading into the woodlot.

You will see the road coming into the property on the left side of the above picture. Following are some more pictures of this road. Boring but I wanted to give a sense of just how far off the highway we are located. What I did was walk it each way and took some pictures coming and going.

A clump of Trillium and the picture below shows just how many are dotting the side of the road coming into the property. It is looking in the woodlot at the back of the property.

This is a pear tree that is apparantly more than a hundred years old.  I tried to wrap my arms around it and my fingers would not touch so it is quite huge at the base.

Inside the coach house coming into the property. It is 20 ft by 40 ft so quite large inside. It was built by the mennonites and is all cedar. Also notice the clutter I have to deal with. Everyone keeps asking if this could be converted into a bunky ... at this point no and indeed all decisions like this will take months if not years to figure out. For now we are just going to get the old house livable again and spend the summer restoring the gardens outside. Major renovations will have to wait and hopefully we will get lots of opinions from family and friends.

Three pictures of the entry way into the property. Again I'm trying to catch just how far off the road we are located. Far enough that you can't even see the end of the road. The woodlot straddles this road and extends off far into the left of this picture. It is about 200 acres and has a stream flowing through it so I shouldn't have any issue with having enough water for our well. It is actually quite wet at the end of the property. The pond used to be an old watering hole for the local cattle so it is spring fed.