Plotting and planning with Google Maps

[journey11]

Here's what I've been working on today...


(Click for larger version)

This is my "one sunny acre" in its entirety. I am looking at how much fence I need to buy to keep dogs out and where I can eventually put goats, build a new goat barn/milking parlor and where else I can plant stuff.

I started to sketch it out, but decided that I really needed it exact! So I went out to Google Maps, zoomed in on my property, did a screen shot (Alt+print screen). Then I copied that over into Adobe Photoshop (you could use Paint too), cropped it down to just my yard and printed it out. Took a black pencil and a ruler and traced out my property lines and other stuff, scanned it back into my computer and labeled everything. I went outside and had DH help me measure the chicken barn, then I used that as a known measurement to calculate exactly how much fence I need to buy--153 yards.

The green dots are the fence I'm planning to build. The yellow and the blue dots are existing fence.

Now when I'm talking about where I'm planting stuff, I have a map I can show you guys!

Neat, huh?

 

[so lucky]

That IS neat. I love making plans to scale like that, and floor plans. And dontcha just love Google Earth?

 

[digitS']

It sure is, Journey!

You have labels and everything.

I was looking at google maps of my house today, by accident. The power company invited me to do online research on energy use and when I went to their webpage, there was a little picture of my house! I clicked on it so that I could spy on the neighbor . . . Ha! So much detail I could easily see the hose running across the lawn.

Maybe I should do this for the distant garden. I'm still agonizing over what in the world I'm going to do with another 1/4 acre out there!

What is in the front yard, in parenthesis, "Cutdown" . ? Do you have a tree to take out?

Steve

 

[lesa]

Every now and then, we check out our property on google. We can tell how old the photos are, by the gardens, etc. "Oh, that was before the square foot gardens in the side yard" type of thing. Fun to see which car is in the driveway, too! Nice planning, journey! We were just talking about trying electric fence for the back 40, tonight. I think we will give it a go...

 

[Jared77]

That is cool!!! I'm impressed. You going with chain link or privacy?

 

[thistlebloom]

That's such a good idea Journey! I think I'll try that myself. It would be nice to have an overall aerial view to organize future planting sites.

 

[journey11]

We're planning to put up goat fencing as a barrier then add a couple of lines of electric to the top. We need to keep my chickens safe (tired of feeding my investments to the neighbor's dogs), and we eventually plan to get a couple of milk goats, and also need to keep the neighbors dogs out so my DD will feel safe playing in her backyard again.

Steve, I've got two corkscrew willows to cut down. The one out by the road just up and died last summer and the one out back is WAY to close to the septic for comfort. It is a lot bigger than the other one was. The top broke out of it during last summer's derecho and DH cut most of it down, but it came back from the stump with a vengence. I will miss that tree though. The corkscrew willows are so graceful and pretty and I love to watch the bluebirds landing on it in the winter. They are just drawn to it for some reason and it's right by my back patio doors where I can enjoy them. But maybe I will put a couple peach trees in over there. They shouldn't reach out and touch the septic if I plant them far enough back from it.