I saw the response post in the other forum in which Billl advised you not to do either but to save your money for potential financing issues. Billl is right about the cash but I think you also need to take into account your overall need. For my husband and I, we have 100 acres that will serve as a home to goats, cows, and alpacas, so we need both. We aren't going to build our home for another 2 years, however we will move the animals before we move ourselves because once we sell our present home, they have to go to the farm while we move to an apartment or rental. We opted for the pond first to make sure that are no issues with water retention and our animals have a constant source of water. Our next project will be a barn. For us, it makes sense to go ahead in steps but if you are just wanting a barn or pond just for an appraisal, then you might want to save the money to go towards potential financing issues. If you have any questions, you might want to contact a realtor and/or appraisor in your area and get their professional opinion as the answer could vary based upon the location in which you live and the layout of your land and the surrounding area.

You need to open it in PDF then save it in jpg. Or see if you can open it in paint. or just open it and do print screen and then past it to paint. Then save it as jpg. I do not know what jpg means but it is the extension needed for saving pictures in a smaller file format. Print screen is usually in upper right on your keyboard. Just tap it. Nothing appears to happen. Then open a blank Paint window. Click file and paste and your picture will appear. Then resize it so it is not the size of a place mat, or your living room rug. Click save as and there will be a drop down you can choose many ways to save. Scroll down until you see jpg. Name it. Then you will be able to load it to photo bucket.

As I have mentioned various times, I am a big fan of Acorus (sweet Flag). I am surprised to see that it supposedly will grow in zone 4 since I believe it is native to the Middle East. Like most here, I have a liner built pond (and stream). Sweet flag is really useful there because it will grow directly in water but it is also happy in damp conditions. Mine seems to grow less than two feet tall (rather than the listed three feet) in clumps. I specifically suggest it (or Mondo Grass or Lirope if they would grow in zone 4, I didn't check), because you have a huge area to cover. I originally bought a gallon pot full of a clump of Sweet Flag and soon realized that I could split it into several little clumps with a shovel. As it turned out, it can be torn apart into individual plants. I would think you could take a single clump and divide it up into a pile of small clumps and spread them in a small area. In a year or so, you could dig them all up and divide into individual or very small clumps and spread them all over your edge and into the water. Of course, my spreading theory might not be as easy or fast as it is for me in zone 7, and in fact might be impossibly slow. My problem is to keep it under control.

The steps? Honestly? I brought a really comfy set of chairs one day and a good bottle of wine and my wife and I sat in the sun and talked. Then, by chance we met an architect who we knew in round about way that this project was perfect for. He's been so helpful for us. Then we started talking as a group. But he has done much of it. Neither my wife nor I knew exactly what we wanted but he helped a lot and made some of the decisions for us. Then he did his thing. We tweaked and then tweaked some more. Now, we need to tweak even more because he came in $200K over budget. But the final designs are awesome. See new photos.