So we are starting with just about nothing on our half acre dream; directly behind the house are some larger, mature juniper trees and another tree I'm not sure of yet, and then just to the south east of our house is the giant 'bean tree', that is the kids play area.  Against the east side of our house are some Rose of Sharon bushes, and near the driveway are a few shrubs.  We have one small tree, I'm not sure of the species, in our front yard, and that's it.  

The small tree is gonna go.  I have no idea why anyone would place that tree there like that, but I have other plans for that area that I think would be more appropriate.  The Rose of Sharon bushes I'm keeping for now, and the other trees I'm keeping as well, as well as the hedges...perhaps.

So that gives me...about...75% of the landscape open to gardening.  This makes me happy in soooooo many ways and I'll tell you why; first, it means I've got plenty of room to put in trees, bushes, veggie garden, herb garden, and all the flower beds I could hope for.  We sit on half an acre after all!  Tim and I are both excited about the space we have and how flexible our lot is.  The water level is high, our land has been worked a lot already and the soil is already PERFECT, a sandy loam that's easy for plants to grow in and us to work with, and on top of all that it is flat with only a fence on one side.  Second, I love growing my own food, eating it fresh from the garden, storing it, and watching my kids enjoy it as well.  I remember gardening ever since I was young, watching pear, apple, and cherry blossoms come and go, and then the little fruit growing until we would climb the trees and pick it all for eating and canning.  There's something special about growing your own food.  Third, we live in an area that is plagued by droughts often, and there are a lot of perennial flowers and plants that I can replace the lawn with in order to satisfy the need to use less water, my desire to see more flowers and garden in general, and to decrease the amount of time my husband has to use to mow the lawn.  Lawns can be nice, and we're keeping some for kids to play in, but honestly they are the most boring, water and time wasters I have ever seen.  I don't know why people bother with them so much.  Get some perennial plants, bushes, and trees.  In the long term they are cheaper, use less water/care for themselves better, and will always make your home more inviting as long as you give them a trimming twice a year, if that.  

My plan is to implement a cottage style garden, full of flowers that will attract birds, butterflies, bees, and of course people.  I want herbs drying in my shed, grapes on trellises/fence , a wall of fruit trees, and hidden spots to explore throughout our yard.  This year though, our first year hear at our house, Tim and I are focused on getting a few basic necessities put in place to help provide food and begin to shape our yard better.  So, the first things going in this year are the fruit trees, the berry patch in front of the grapes, the grape vines, our chicken coop and run, and of course our veggie garden.  We have planned it and other parts of our yard out for this year, though plans do change on occasion and this map of our yard will probably be updated once in a while.

Gleaning is when you collect excess food or usable items/plants from neighbors, nature, etc.  I have gleaned a bit here and there at various times in my life, got comfortable talking with neighbors and other's when I'm curious to see how flexible they are with their goods.  Now that we have our own home and I can experiment a little more, I think gleaning and trading will come in great use, especially since we live in a semi-rural area and most of our neighbors have livestock and farms.  Some of our neighbors have already brought us corn on the cob, peaches, apples, and cantaloupe.   

During some of our neighborhood walks I noticed a few houses that had tradeable foods, excess on the ground, and things in their yards that perhaps they might be willing to let go of.  One such is a lovely lady who has a couple of walnut trees in her front yard.  The walnuts were littering the ground; hundreds of them, all over the sidewalk, in the road, scattered in the pockets of the grass lawn.  It took a few visits to finally knock and get her at the door in order to ask properly for the walnuts, but when we did finally get ahold of her she was very kind, mentioned that only her husband eats them once in a while, so we were welcome to bring a back and collect a bunch.

Quinn went to school, Perrin and I played a bit, cooked breakfast, took care of a few things, and then picked Quinn up from school.  After lunch Perrin went down for nap and Quinn and I walked to the neighbor's yard, bag in hand.  He worked hard and focused well, collecting as many walnuts as he could around the yard.  We collected so many of them before bumping into the mail lady.  She noticed our walnut gleaning and asked about what we were up to.  I mentioned the asking about collecting them and asked if she wanted some.  Our mail lady was so happy about the little bag of walnuts we were able to give her.  Both of us, the mail lady and myself, have never roasted walnuts and were excited to learn how.  

Hopefully she'll figure it out, and hopefully I will too!

Quinn had a good time and I felt like it was an opportunity not wasted to teach my son about how to find an extra food source.  Though I'm no homesteader, and we're definitely still pretty close to the city and city ways, but I think of our little half acre as an opportunity to start learning and practicing how to be more self-sufficient, and that includes teaching my children as we go.  If I can replace our store bought produce, meat, and eggs, many of our snacks and even some of our juices, I'd be ecstatic!  Collecting walnuts and making good connections with our neighbors is how all of those goals begin, because creating those good relationships within our community is vital to self-sufficiency as well I believe.  Being able to provide for yourself and family when completely alone is great, but you can really thrive if you have a community ready to share, trade, and help one another.

I plan on making homemade bread for our neighbor with the walnuts in return for their generosity.  I don't have a lot more to share yet seeing as we haven't started our own gardens, our chickens, or hunting, but I hope to help other's in the future and get a good community sharing sense going on.  We hope to bring to our neighborhood pears, peaches, apples, grapes, meat from hunting, eggs, chicken, and when our green house is up and running a regular supply of vanilla beans, cacao pods, bananas, and maybe a few other specialty varieties.  

Hopefully we'll get to that point, but today started with gleaning walnuts with my son.  In the end we had 5lbs of walnuts, shells on still, so there's plenty of work to do with them.  Guess it's time to buy a nut cracker! 

I made the last minute decision to go on a hike on Saturday, just a quick one close by at Antelope Island, so Tim and I grabbed our Osprey kid backpack for hiking and prepped both kids, some snacks, water, and of course a bowl and water for our puppy Zoey as well.  We had never been to Antelope Island, despite it being about ten minutes down the street from us, and luckily we brought the $15 cash needed to get to the island, (there was a payment booth to get there).  The lake was pretty empty, I've heard people say it's been getting lower and lower every year and they think it will disappear in the near future, and you could almost walk across on dry land to the island on it's eastern side at this point.

So we drove across the causeway to the island, the day was absolutely perfect blue, clear skies to the mountains on all sides, and the temperature was actually one of the warmest it had been for weeks, which was good because we forgot our jackets completely, including kid jackets.  I know.  I win mom of the year award for that one, hehe.  Quinn was very happy to carry his own backpack, water bottle, and snacks all together, and he was excited to be out in a place where he could jump on rocks and run down trails.  The dog was timid at first but excited as well, the joy of being outside with new smells and scenery was almost overwhelming for our little puppy, and she had to learn to listen while walking on leash all over again.  

While walking the first little way I realized that the simple trail I had picked out, named the Lake Side Trail Loop at the north west side of the island, was heavily used by the Buffalo as well.  I knew there were bison there from when Brigham Young had placed a herd there, I just didn't realize how free roaming they were, or how populated the island was with them.  We had to keep a close eye around the trail's turns and hills, and an even closer eye on Quinn to make sure he didn't run off ahead of us or around any large rock outcroppings.  A few times we came around a corner and found a bison not thirty feet from the trail, staring us down.  Even at the very end of the 4.8 mile hike there was one point at which we had to leave the trail and give another feeding bison a large buffer.  It was about ten feet from where we had to walk and I decided I wasn't in good enough shape to run at 40 mph for any length of time.  That's how fast they charge after all.

As we made our loop around the west side of the trail's loop there were some fantastic views out over the water and down to some of the beaches.  It was hard not to take pictures constantly, especially when we let Perrin out about halfway down the trail and he just started hustling, running down the trail as fast as he could without biffing it.  He made it for a while on his little baby legs, but eventually just flopped down time and time again, not crying of complaining, his stubby legs would just give up every five or six steps and we decided to stick him back in the pack.

Quinn really surprised me on the hike!  I was expecting to have to turn around after a mile or two, but Quinn didn't complain until the very last quarter mile.  I was really proud of him, almost five miles carrying his own pack and everything!  For a five year old I think that's great!  We only stopped twice to drink some water and the kids ate lunch in the car on the way back.

One of my favorite parts of the hike was actually how the sunlight seemed to make some of the bushes glow.  The fluff from the seeds was so thick that the light shining through them became so soft, giving the bushes halos everywhere.  I'm more of a deep dark woods and alpine terrain girl, but the sage and prairie was lovely that day.

Tim and I are considering getting a yearly pass just because the park is so close and we can practice hiking there in the afternoons, as well as snowshoeing.  I don't think I would go running there though, just because of the number of large aggressive buffalo, but maybe in some of the rougher trails, or if you get up there in elevation they might dither out a bit in numbers, making it not as much a risk. 

You know, it's kind of funny, I'm not so sure there are any antelope on Antelope Island, but we did see a lot of Bison!  I'll have to do some research and see if there are any antelope left.