"Before" Pictures of the Homestead-to-be

Out of all the houses we looked at, we ended up being accepted at our first choice!  It has a nice area for the kids upstairs, a Michigan basement so we finally have someplace for some more advanced food storage and someplace to go during tornado warnings, and the biggest yard of every place we looked at!  For me, the basement and the yard were some of the biggest pluses for what we were looking at.  On this house, I was also greatly encouraged by seeing the next door neighbor had clothes hanging on a line in the back yard, something that had been forbidden at the Trailer Park Homestead.  I'm seeing a lot of potential for this new place.....but I haven't asked if I can have chickens yet!

This is our front yard to be.  Since we are on an extremely busy street, I haven't decided if I'm going to leave it more or less as is for camouflage (nothing to see here; move along) for the sake of security, or if I'm going to turn it into a showcase of what is possible to grow in a small area to serve as an inspiration for the surrounding community, and just expect to share whatever is up there with the community.  If it wasn't on a busy street, there is no question that I would have a showcase, but this is one of the city's major streets, so it may draw more attention than I want to deal with, in a negative way.

This picture shows the side yard, as taken from the middle of the backyard.  There isn't a whole lot of side yard, but that's okay, because if I do want to conceal my urban growing activities, I'll want to put a privacy screen of some sort up there to block the backyard from the three- or four- lane one way street that goes in front of it.  I'm also excited about the ramp, because that means for the first time, my sister-in-law will be able to visit us, so I'll definitely be looking to make sure to keep that accessibility when designing the garden.  The other side of the house is driveway, so nothing to see there.

This picture is from the corner of the property.  You can tell from the small size of the ramp that it's a pretty decent sized yard!  Not so large that I'm really thinking about goats, but I definitely intend on asking the landlord about chickens, once I make sure that local ordinances would allow for them (which I'm pretty sure they do, I just need to find out specifics).  The van isn't actually parked in the real driveway/parking area, since I wanted to keep the back of the house clear for pictures, so that's actually future gardening area as well.