The Apple Jack Creek Estate

We have a snowy day in the forecast, which means grey and overcast, but there’ll be sunshine again tomorrow.

As it is February (worst of the year for me, generally, mental health wise) I am just being super cautious and taking everything very easy. I have spent most of the last week buried in garden books: having spent 8 years in university, the habit of spreading out resource books and making notes by hand is deeply embedded, and I’ve been enjoying working on my “individualized gardening resources”. I have one notebook with different plants and their needs / uses / details, and another where I’m making general notes about permaculture principles, different design options, and sort of “big idea” stuff. I do a lot of throwaway note taking too - drawings of how I might lay out the yard or garden beds and “thinking out loud on paper” stuff, and I thought it would be kind of cool to have some notes that are specific to the gardens here - but I’m starting to make notes about when things bloom, when and where I’ve planted things, and why … notes that can be kept from year to year to see how things go over the longer term.

One of the permaculture books I was reading suggested that one consider the time scale of the project. I’ve decided to take a generational approach - treat my house and land like a great estate, which I am caretaker of and need to improve and pass on. I want to plant a big tree in the yard that can someday hold a swing. Shelterbelts to protect the house from wind and grow berries and veggies - even if the trees will take 20 years to get to any notable size. A potager garden to grow root vegetables and things that need care, in raised beds protected (somehow) from the quack grass. And maybe a miniature Iron Age Roundhouse in the yard, as an experiment, retreat, and play house for Small Persons. Because why not?

It’s good for me to push my brain into the future.

And, my son has the same attitude towards our land as I do - when DH and I married we were very careful to ensure that the property ownership arrangement and the will are set up so that when I die, my son inherits my share of everything, and as I own pretty much nothing except my share of the house and land, that’s what he’ll have. He intends to keep the place (he’d buy out his step siblings or DH, who would probably be just as happy to move to a smaller place were he on his own), so The Boy sees this kind of as a mini estate, too - he doesn’t mind doing work around here or even investing some of his own funds to make improvements as he feels a sense of ownership. DH finds this a bit discombobulating, as he sees it more like “the place we live at the moment” not “the place I and my descendants will live, insh’allah” but that’s okay. 

Now if only my mini great estate came with staff. :) Oh well, you can’t have everything!

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