The Missouri Journal by Mark S. Chenail  

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Earth Stewardship 101 How to achieve a sustainable, flourishing farm

THE FINAL PLAN AND FACADES

This is the plan we are working with now.  Its not engraved in stone, but the finished  house won't be too different. We did get one surprise when we came to lay it out: there was one tree in the way, a really nice big oak  that is, unfortunately, right in the loggia area.  After a little head scratching , we decided to be a bit unorthodox and just build around the tree.  When we get around to building the loggia wing next year, that tree will continue grow where it is, undisturbed. We will loose a bit of the space in the upper story, but  it does create a neat sort of hanging hallway lined with windows.  We figure the tree can serve double duty as a sort of fire escape for those upper story guest rooms.  The great room will be about 12 feet tall and, pretty much, lined with windows. We designed that big corner bay so we would have a place to put a huge Christmas tree that could be seen from the road, not that Sappington Lane gets much traffic.  The public rooms will have sun most of the day and the dining room and kitchen will stay fairly cool on the north side.  The courtyard formed by the two wings is shaded by two big oak trees and leads to the  old log pole arbor.  There's also a handy little wood room so we don't have to go out in the winter.

We tried to cut down as few trees as possible and since the previous owner had left us with a pretty large open site, it was only necessary to cut down 4 trees. The power company had pretty much cleared out all the brush for us,  which left us with a small open meadow toward the road.  Roger and Jon are working on getting this area cleared out so that maybe the grass will grow and we will probably throw down a bit of wildflower seed to help it along.  Nearer the house, we want to have some more formal garden spaces and a nice vegetable garden with raised beds.  Our soil here isn't very good so we figured raised beds, filled with imported soil, would solve that problem. All that is in the future.  Right now we are anxious to get the poles in the ground and frame up and close in the middle wing before the end of the summer.  That way we will have two bedrooms and the dining room to use while we work on the main wing this winter and next year.  Wish us luck.

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