The Land

The land is 3.2 acres of hard scrabble, dotted with the occasional oak being suffocated by the ever present cedar trees. Thus far we have discovered a jack rabbit, a cottontail, numerous lizards and toads, a consortium of daddy long legs, and everyones favorite, fire ants, inhabiting the lot. We will do our best to not displace most of these critters, but a few million fire ants are likely to perish. The lot elevates as you get away from the road, forming three natural and nearly equivalent flat areas where a house could sit. The driveway up to the land is shaped like a flag stick 60' wide that opens up to the flag portion of the land after 200'. On the second flat area there is an old well house (home to the daddy long legs) with an even older well. We were originally told that the well had run dry, but upon inspection we found that the well pump was dead. The well is 400' deep, drilled into the Glenrose Aquifer, and has 65' of (hopefully) potable water. We will be repairing and testing the well at a later date.

One of our first tasks on the land was to get a general idea of the space that we can play with, without losing too many oak trees. We marked out a 24' x 22' spot near the old well house that will become the new well house/storage shed/one car garage, and a 55' x 55' plot that could serve as our general footprint 50' from the well house, both on the second flat level. During this process, Kent Ewing (Tara's father), Tara and I cut and cleared a number of cedar trees, building an impressive burn pile. The first flat area will likely serve as our septic field and home to a 10,000 to 15,000 gallon water tank for a water catchment system. To ensure this was feasible we brought out Richard Heineken from Tank Town in Dripping Springs to inspect the land and advise us. Aside from arriving 3+ hours late (we were taking care of the burn pile anyway), Richard proved to be an affable guy and heartily endorsed all of our ideas. The third level is yet to be determined, but I have wild and crazy dreams of a blue agave farm and tequila distillery. Aren't dreams great!

The big decision from all of this is that we will use a water catchment system for all of our potable water, using the well primarily for gardening and as a back up water supply. I will do my best to post a survey of the land once I figure out how to turn a pdf into a jpeg image to give everyone a better idea of the shape of the lot. For now you can see a google satellite image of the land below. Our driveway is to the right of the house and car port that has photoelectric cells on the roof, and the rest of the land is basically outlined by the dirt paths. If you look closely you can spot the current well house.

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