Who Needs Google Earth (Definitely Me)

I can only equate google earth aerials updating to waiting for a holiday as a kid. Except, you knew when the holiday would come (except Memorial and Labor Days, those are always surprises). I have watched the aerial views pretty close since we started major renovation projects, just waiting for new updates so I can have a birds eye view of all the progress we have made. Except, Google Earth hasn’t updated since 2018, and there has been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears poured out on this land since then.

I am happy to report, we can now make the holidays come at predictable intervals. Engineers smarter/richer/likely more handsome than I have invented these things called drones. They fly up high in the sky and they can take pictures! Some of them are even smart enough to come back home when their batteries get low. Technology, amiright? Sadly, we do not have one of these engineering masterpieces (yet), but we have a friend with one, and he was kind enough to bring it over to our place this past week, and I even got to drive it! Google earth has supplied past aerials of 2017/2018, and we now have 2020 for comparison. This is equatable with at least the 4th of July. Most of the progress has been on the barn side of the property, I will need google street view to update the house side, but who really cares about that when you can see new fencing, barn roofs, and my shiny new holding pen! So, without further ado:

Google Earth collected this view in April 2017. We purchased in July of the same year, so this is really a great view of the “Before.” Tune in around 2050 for a final “After” shot. Its hard to even see where the barns were, the roofs were in such bad shape. Only one barn remains that we fixed, and we all regret not starting it from scratch. If these were built pre-1970 or so, it would have been a crime to demolish them. But we were dealing with shoddy workman ship from the 1990s or later I would say. Moving on.

One year in, you can see our barn with its new roof, cleared fence lines, and even some improvement to the pastures.

OK, June 2020. Notice the pine tree in front of the barn is now missing its top… we had a tornado come through in May, and it was one of many casualties. But, since it broke about 30 ft up, it missed the barn, fence, power line, and more fence that it could have wiped out, depending on which way it fell. See my shiny new holding pen and the lack of other out buildings? Not to mention the wind break shelter in the pasture, the new fence line, and the orchard. Yep, I definitely need a drone to call my own.