I have always loved maps. As a kid, I loved looking at atlases and some of my most favorite books, such as J.R.R Tolkein’s “Lord Of The Rings” Trilogy or Winnie The Pooh’s “One Hundred Acre Wood”, all had hand drawn maps that my eyes would feast upon and return to again and again while reading the books. Naturally, this led me to drawing maps of my own….maps of my bedroom, maps of my house, maps of my school, maps of my backyard and maps of the woods surrounding my parent’s land. Now, as an adult, I draw maps of the land surrounding my own house and my children have developed a love of maps as well.
The below map is of the 2 acres that directly surround our house, the other 7 acres is all woods and while we do draw maps of the woods as well, maps with names like “pattern bush”, “venison pond” and the “wierdo tree”, I have not included these as they would not makes sense to the reader so far removed from the actual location. This map has also been updated to included changes to the terrain, things like “sandy beach” and “the lagoon” which were a direct result of the severe flooding that happened to us on July 19th, 2013.
We live in what is commonly referred to around these parts as a hollow or holler’..some people might refer to it as a small valley, but a hollow is more appropriate as it’s surrounded on all sides by ridgelines coming off the same mountain…a valley, technically, is the low lands between two mountains.
When we moved here in Oct. 2009 there was the shed (now the “goat shed”), 3 peach trees, LOTS of black raspberry bushes, 1 cherry tree, 3 blueberry bushes, 1 black walnut tree and one poorly kept garden plot …everything else has been added by us…all of the garden plots are “hand dug” the old fashioned way with shovel and hoe, they are also fenced in to keep out deer, chickens and mischievous children. We still have many more plans and much more work to do…but it is FUN and immensely satisfying…there is no place else I’d rather be 😀
Here is a short video of the flash flooding…I’m walking over the bridge that goes over the creek, and the building that you see is MY HOUSE! The water was so fierce that you could hear and, at times, actually see whole BOULDERS removed from the banks and sent churning through the torrent, it was WILD to say the least! Fortunately, the water just missed our house, jumping the bank just after passing the cherry tree and flooding the marshy field area behind our house. No one was injured and, other than to the terrain itself, no serious damage was done 🙂
Here are some more pictures of The Land for your viewing pleasure (ALL of these were taken by me.):
The new “Lagoon” a 3-4 ft. deep hole, a result of the flooding
My husband, Nathan, standing on our new “beach”..before the flooding happened there were several huge boulders there
My son Elijah (who is 8 years old in this picture) standing on the old log bridge, the flooding removed it 30 feet downstream
Musings Of A Mountain Mama 
That is awesome! Always wanted to try living like that, if the Lord wills it. =-)
This is cool. My husband and i are also debt free and we built our home as well. Do u have any pictures of your house, inside? Very curious 😉 i replied on the other page of yours as well.
There are a few pictures of the inside of our house scattered here and there throughout my blog, but not an actual post. We didn’t build it ourselves though, but we did do a lot of work on it when we first bought it, I took loads to “before” pictures about a week after we moved in with plans to do a post with “after” pictures, showing all the work we have done…but time is always a factor in these things, hopefully someday I will be able to do so!
It is truly amazing that this land is your “backyard!” So beautiful and nourished. Thank you for sharing!