Once our plot was tilled, we needed to put up a fence as quickly as possible.  We have a large number of deer on our property and in the surrounding area (as evidenced by the fact that we hit three deer in a six-month period with our vehicles!) so a fence is absolutely necessary. We fenced in roughly a half acre, a 150’ x 150’ square.  We used poultry netting for the bottom 3 feet with an extra 1 foot that we turned outward at the base to discourage digging under the fence.  The top 3 feet of the fence we strung with 3 electric fencing wires.  Because we do not have electricity close enough by for the fence we bought a solar powered electric fencer to power the fence which works very well.
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Once the fence was done and the grapes and fruit trees planted we focused on our vegetable garden.  In addition to our large roto-tilled area where we planted corn, lots of vine crops, beans, tomatoes, and peppers, my husband made two raised beds for me (with hopefully many more in the future!).  One we used for asparagus, the other I planted with annual flowers for cutting and drying.

Other things we have done this summer include build a wooden play set for our daughter which we promised to do as we had to leave her other one in New York when we moved. We are currently in the process of sanding and re-staining our log home (a much bigger task than anticipated)!  We discovered some logs were beginning to rot so this was definitely a necessary task this summer. 

Lastly, we have spent the entire spring and summer fighting the ticks which will likely be a separate blog post in the future. We mostly have dog or wood ticks but have also found some deer ticks which carry Lyme disease. We had a huge problem with deer ticks in NY (in fact we lived in one of the worst counties for Lyme disease in the US) so we are glad to exchange them for wood ticks. But we have so many wood ticks here that we find them everywhere including our house, clothes, yard, field, play set, fish tank, and more. Daily tick checks are a must!
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