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We sort of have one that has evolved over time. It started 
as a map taken from the original survey in part of my 
nerdy botanical need to have an assessment of all the 
plants found here. Since I occassionally teach Master 
Naturalist botany courses here it was a handy reference. 
Then as the farm grew it became a device to show farm 
sitters where everything was located that needed attention 
in our rare absence. After reading Bill Mollison's 
Permaculture books one and two, we started considering it 
more of a master plan. We are debating whether to 
rennovate our drafty old post office-turned-house for 
better efficiency or to build an ecologically based new 
one somewhere else on the property so possible places for 
that are being looked at.

Fortunately, we had already located things needing the 
most attention (like the chicken coop) closer to the house 
than things needing the least (like the winter squash 
patch), with the exception of our vegetable garden which 
is positioned in the sun behind our park-like oak shaded 
back lawn. This would all be disrupted by changing the 
location of our abode. I like the permaculture ideas a 
lot, but they don't all work for us. For one we are 
challenged with a deep ravine that splits the five acres 
in half that makes any kind of radius of work proximity 
impossible. This plan would work great if you had a lot of 
land and could situate a house in the middle, like many 
American farmsteads once did (historically, also the basis 
of the American front and back yards with the house 
smack-dab in the middle).

--Sage

On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 06:42:59 -0500
 Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:
> How many of you have a drawn master plan for your 
> homestead? Did you  
> live there for a year or more before drawing the plan? 
> How often do  
> you revise it?
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