240 acres, 80 acres is the original plot and our focus. Most of the remaining 160 acres is lowland flood plain, heavily forested. It will always remain that way. About 40 years ago Russel Neswick along with his daughter Katherine, planted about 50,000 trees on the property, created several ponds and provided a habitat for a variety of wildlife to the area. The picture you see above was a corn field when they first began. One of the original plans of Russel Neswick was to build the worlds largest walk through aviary. A little odd for a place in northwest Indiana but with a Chicago market nearby, some marketing savy, and in the true spirit of an visionary entreprenuer, if it's built, they'll come. And so, construction began. The netting and poles that created the aviary covered an area of about 2 acres, incorporated exotic trees, flora and fauna of all types, a pond with aquatic life. It was named Birdland. Unfortunately, what transpired turned out to be disappointment. Miscalculated costs, misfortune, engineering blunders and overall mismanagement torpedoed any chance of viability. The birds disappeared, predators cleaned out the weaker creatures. People stopped coming.
Over the years, the natural progression of the forest took hold and grew without interferrence and continues today. Vines and orther invasive species have taken hold, rot and rust eat away at the poles and steel cables. The netting lies haphazardly draped and entwined across trees and shrubs. Though it's been closed now for decades, the locals who remember Birdland, still refer to the property as Birdland.
Some newer artistic hobbies in the area of sculpture of have emerged in recent years on a small portion of the property. The hope and preservation is a solid as concrete. We'll reveal more on that throughout this blog. I (we, my wife Katherine and I) will also share some of the storied past behind Birdland, the events, people and memories that make the place so interesting. After all, everyone likes a good story and, this place has 'em and we'll continue to document our own story here as well.Currently, we're working on approximately 5+ acres of moderately cleared land near the house and out buildings. We're beginng the work of creating an edible forest garden. What started out as an idea of planting few apple trees in the spring of 2011 ballooned into planting approximately 400+ trees, shrubs, brambels and vines. All but a few produce edible fruit, the remaining are ornamental. Other work on the original 80 acres is a systematic erradication of invasive plant species, trimming and area management of existing ornamental and specimen trees.
Our goal is to assist, restore the land and ultimately live there. The baton is being passed along to us to manage and carry it the next leg of it's existence. We're totally sold out committed to this project and the processes that go along with it. The workload is great and finances are limited in terms of the scope of our grand project. This is a multi year venture. Actually, this will take us the rest of our lives and it's more of an adventure than a venture. We feel like environmental surgeons, cutting away the cancerous debris and overgrowth to reveal the beauty beneath and to build a sustainable landscape that is indigenous and healthy.
It sounds poetic. The reality is, it's a pain the butt with a lot of hard physical work. I'm not sore in anyone spot, I'm sore all over. I haven't felt this good in years. I quit my health club membership because of it.
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Now that you've got the basic idea of what we're doing, the rest will start to get interesting. The nuances and characters abound. That's what this is about.
