A Half Wild Farm

Our second growing season here is wrapping up. I've got a much more concrete idea of what we're doing than I did when we started.

One idea that's on my mind lately is the people who settled northeast Ohio from the east coast really never figured out how to live here. Rather than adapt to and make the most of the new environment they were in, which was overflowing with natural abundance they literally razed it to the ground. They really wrecked it almost as throughly as they could given their population and technology. In the 70 or 100 years since they gave up farming on our little property, the damage persists. If they had known what they were doing would they have done anything different? I think so. 

This area around Big Creek is really distinctinctive. Thanks to the parks all along the creek and up to the lake, there's a lot of habitat for animals and plants. My current thought is to try to have a half wild farm where the native animals and plants--the flora and fauna that are best suited and complementary to the climate and landscape here--are complementary to our activities.