Sep. 9, 2009 - Welcome To Blackberry Lane Farm

Welcome to Blackberry Lane Farm, where the Sills family live on their 1.3 acres of God's green earth. The 1.3 acres He has given dominion over. The 1.3 acres He has given us to till, plow, tend, and protect. Join me as I give you a photo tour. 

Here is a picture of our farm house, our home.

Our home is a double-wide mobile home the Lord has graciously provided for us. For the first 19 years of our marriage, we lived in a 1968 single-wide trailer. It was strudy and comfy. It provided us with shelter and a place to call home. With a change in DH's job situation and a steady, secure income the job change bought; we were able to afford our new home.

Here is a view of the front of our home and our front porch.

We have plans to build a bigger porch, but that will have to wait until the funds become avaiable. I have 2 window box planters hanging from the rail. A chair is sitting in the corner by the front door. I have a flower pot full flowers and small decorative items sitting in the opposite corner.

We live in a rural county and in a community that is slowly losing its farm land to housing developements.  We are still blessed to be surrounded by farm land and have beautiful views surrounding us. Here is 2 views from our front porch.

DH spent one of his July 4th vacation weeks to build our beautiful back deck. I helped him stain it one weekend. We eat out on the deck in the spring and fall when the weather permits it. We used the deck to hold our DD's homeschool graduation ceremony. Here is our back deck.

Over his Christmas vacation week 2008, DH constructed our firepit area. I gave him a firepit as his Christmas present. He used salvaged paving brick from a walkway at our old trailer to make a brick patio. He used landscape timbers to lay off a flower bed area around the patio. This spring and summer, I have been adding flowers to the area. We have built several fires and enjoyed the evenings and nights around the fire. Here is our firepit area.

Here is a view of the deck and firepit area.

Here are some views from our back deck.

We have several out buildings. We have a chicken house, a camper shed, and a building made out of 2 buildings we put together. DH built our chicken house out of rough cut lumber, again over one of his July 4th vacations. Here it is,(and if you look real close you can see one of our Barred Rock chickens sitting in the window.)

Here is our camper shed which usually holds our pop-up camper. (DH is storing our lawnmowers in it right now, because he is using the lawnmower shed to store engine parts in from a motor he is taking apart.)

Here is the building we made by putting 2 buildings together. The half with the white door used to be a laundry room that was built onto the back of our old trailer. The other half with the bigger door was a storage building. We moved both of the buildings and married them to each other to make one big building. Both halfs are still separate, in other words you can't get from one side to the other. The half with the white door in now my garden shed and hoilday storage area, as well as a tool shed for DH. The other half is our lawnmower shed/project work area. We painted the building to match our home.

Beside this building is my clothes line. I enjoy going out and hanging up the laundry. It makes me smile to see clothes flapping in the wind. It is also a great way to help reduce the power bill. You can see our rain barrel in the picture, too. We use this water to water my flower pots and our flowers and trees in our yard.

I garden in raised garden beds. I have found it is easier for me to manage and I can grow enough for the 3 of us to eat and perserve. I hope to build a few more beds in the future. Here are our current 3 beds. (These pictures were taken in the early summer. The beds don't look as pretty in the late summer.)

We compost as much material as we can. We have to compost bins. Here they are. The bigger, fuller looking one is the one we are letting rot down to put on our garden beds next spring. The smaller, empiter one is the one we will fill this spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Since we have a firepit, we have started a wood pile. Here it is.

Well, that ends my tour of our little farm. I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned to learn how we came up with the name for our little farm.