Anonymous asked:

What’s the layout of your farm? Would you mind drawing up a little “blueprint” sort of deal showing where plots are, where chickens are, and so on, plus the reasons why you put things where you put them? Would be interesting to read. Thanks!

Dear Anonymous,

I made a “blueprint” and a panorama of the farm because I’m a computer scientist and it was a lot more fun than what I was supposed to be doing today!

For the most part, the decisions about where things would go in the yard were made for us. A big mulberry tree shades a large area, and someone had laid down a brick patio a long time ago, which we discovered when we shoveled away the foot of dirt that had buried it. So we put the garden on the other side, where it’s sunny. (This summer, Carpenter Luke helped me prune back some of the mulberry branches, which were creeping in and shading the garden.)

Long-time readers will remember that, for a few brief months, Peebottle Farms was twice as big as it is today. We cleaned up the entire backyard, which spans our building and the one next door, and once we did the hard labor, its beauty was so appealing that it was snatched away from us. Originally, we imagined the chickens living on that side, and away from the building, so they wouldn’t be so close to our neighbors’ windows. We are really thankful that the family whose windows are right by the coop doesn’t mind. In fact, they seem to like it (they’re Mexican, which might help make it seem less strange). There are three little kids who sit in the window watching them often, and of course, we’ve given them some eggs in gratitude.

—N.