We finally spent a little money and bought a few tons of native stone from someone on craigslist.
It was actually sad, to me, that he was selling it. He had a LOT of land... had a wall that he claims was put up during the civil war era... and it was dry stacked about 6 feet tall and a good mile or so long. That is a LOT of stone. And he is taking it all down just to clear things out. Says he is going to be a farmer.
I'd hate to see a wall like that disappear...
Anyway... we plan on using it for borders. I'm starting around our house. The very first place is the back side. Our yard is ALL hill... and, they had to bulldoze just to have a flat spot big enough for our tiny home. On the backside the hill goes up from the house... so when it rains, water pours down towards it. I plan on using the rock to sort of step the yard up away from the house. I'll start with a row right next to the house... then have some flat area that will be used to plant some shrubs and flowers... then, another row of rocks only higher. I'm not sure how much I'll step it up beyond that but I want at least that to start with. Hopefully that will keep some of the runoff from flowing right under the house.
I bought two shade trees last year... some sort of locust... one of them died before we got it in the ground.


One was planted right near the house though and I'm hoping it will grow well and start giving some shade to the house. The summer sun can be quite hot around here.
Oh, I'm also clearing an area near the front of the house that is a pretty good hill... pretty much just for sledding purposes. It doesn't snow often here but, I sure hope to go sledding this year.

I also plan on clearing around a few wild trees so they can do better than the stuff popping up around them. I've found a few mulberry trees I plan to let grow and there's a sassafrass right by the front of the house that I'm going to let grow... I love those.
I'd also like to redo our driveway but, it's a tough and costly job. We'd LOVE to have some concrete poured but it's a long driveway and would likely cost over $10,000... we just can't afford that. Right now it's just a bumpy mess that we have to drive up backwards... oh well...