I've discovered Google satellite images. Show us where you are.

This is a street view that shows where you enter my place. It's a half mile drive to the good end of the property. https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.0766459,-123.9913123,3a,75y,180h,81.66t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sW4sSdiRZiUoJYUaOquZa-w!2e0

This is a satellite view. It's 2 years old. https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.0746018,-123.982102,68m/data=!3m1!1e3 My tenant's trailer and three sheds are to the right. My cottage is to the left. Above and to the right of the cottage is a big slash pile that is now a hugelkultur.

This is a huge slab and sawdust pile that lies one mile away. It's all free. https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.0801052,-123.9917418,65m/data=!3m1!1e3

The Nanaimo river is at the bottom of this shot. My tenant's buildings are at the top. It's a 5 minute hike to the river. It's steep ground for half of the walk. https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.0733187,-123.9812691,310m/data=!3m1!1e3

You have a gorgeous view and a lovely property!

I love seeing such pictures and think it's really neat to see where others live but don't feel comfortable posting that sort of info about myself, though. Sorry!


(For those that don't like google having recorded detailed views of their property.... http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/10/30/how-to-hide-your-house-from-google-maps/ (--Moderators, if this is non-conducive, I'll delete it))

The tax man must love this. I looked at my parent's place and every illegal shed is clearly visible.

The top view of trees doesn't tell how tall, but there's a dead top on a big cedar between the cottage and the trailer that is visible.

I don't think the government is too concerned about hugelkultur. My mound is visible from space.

Actually in many places on the globe the Google maps photo view (at least when you're zoomed in and counting trees) is from aerial photography taken by airplanes, or so I understand. Not that sat views aren't available, but Google buys a lot of imagery and in many non-remote places the airplane stuff is supposedly cheaper or more available at the higher resolutions.

I love these views of my own area but there are lots of reasons why putting my specific coordinates on the internet forever just seems too risky. Right now it wouldn't be a problem but in ten or twenty years, who knows? By then there could be a Cult of Roundup that goes around hunting permaculturalists for ritual slaughter, we don't know.

Here's me. 5.00 acres of heaven. We're just gradually doing things with it; it going to be years before we're utilizing the whole area, let alone using it effectively.

Note the interesting northeast corner- when they split this property off, they ignored the existing fences and fields and just grabbed a rectangle. That means I get about an acre of that field outside the fences, and a couple of feet of my neighbor's pond. Thank goodness he's a wonderful, sensible guy. I made sure to get a hold of him on the phone and talk about the property lines before ever buying the place.

Dan Boone wrote:

I love these views of my own area but there are lots of reasons why putting my specific coordinates on the internet forever just seems too risky. Right now it wouldn't be a problem but in ten or twenty years, who knows? By then there could be a Cult of Roundup that goes around hunting permaculturalists for ritual slaughter, we don't know.

I'm hoping for the opposite effect. I would hope that people who are searching maps of their areas will see these little (sometimes not so little) pieces of vibrant growth, pattern and awesomeness and say " hey... how's that work?" It could be a game changer in the good way.

When I was looking in my area I found a few permaculture practitioners that were visible from space but from the street side of things you can clearly see that they don't want company. In a way it was a bit of a good feeling and then I was kinda sad that these folks weren't publicly visible so other people could see the awesomeness.

Wouldn't it be neat if one day you got a knock on your door and the person said " Hi! I'm from the government and I saw your property from space... We need your help." ?

Here's my village, if anyone wants to explore... https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@39.7615235,-7.6271572,3a,75y,8.17h,63.52t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1syjhtA_UhvlsAJvZz8t6R4w!2e0

I would like to see a thing for Google maps,  where you can ask it to take you for a drive. If you're thinking about going somewhere,  just zoom into that spot and then send the google truck on its way or actually,  follow where it went a year ago.

Unless there is nude sunbathing going on, I can't see that aerial photography is much of an invasion of privacy. People are not identifiable and windows are obscured by rooflines.

Googling a persons name is much more likely to turn up personal information. The government and police already know where I live. I don't think it matters if someone on the other side of the world has a look at my garden from the sky or look at my other junk.

When looking for real estate, this can be a very useful tool. Call up the property, and then zoom out to see what's in the neighborhood. Often  the real estate  agents will show only the best views. Whenever I find a super real estate deal, that seems to good to be true, an examination of the neighborhood tends to show me why it's so cheap.

A quick look around my neighborhood shows that there is no industrial thing other than the sawmill,  a mile away and nothing in my watershed.

I used google earth to see the soil types on a land parcel of interest. I downloaded a .kml file of soil types for the whole planet from:
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/soil_web/kml/SoilWeb.kmz

I had to look for landmarks to see where the parcel is, but that worked.

Also there's a webtool at: http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/gmap/

Brian Cady wrote:I used google earth to see the soil types on a land parcel of interest. I downloaded a .kml file of soil types for the whole planet from:
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/soil_web/kml/SoilWeb.kmz

I had to look for landmarks to see where the parcel is, but that worked.

Also there's a webtool at: http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/gmap/

Cool.

My current pictures are not that interesting, but previous versions showed the subsoiler rip lines and the square bales left in the field.

There are apps that integrate with iPhones and Androids to give you soil types where you stand, so you don't have to bend over and dig;-).
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/drupal/node/902

Brian Cady wrote:I used google earth to see the soil types on a land parcel of interest. I downloaded a .kml file of soil types for the whole planet from:
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/soil_web/kml/SoilWeb.kmz

I had to look for landmarks to see where the parcel is, but that worked.

Also there's a webtool at: http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/gmap/

Oooo! Thank you for this! Our county has a similar soil website, but it is not nearly as thorough. I really enjoyed reading about different aspects of my soil

The tax man already uses this technology. In most US Counties you can go to the county assessors page and find maps that show land ownership, tax rates and historical ownership.

I'm taking an aerial drive from the main road where I enter, to an area approximately 3/4 mile from the main road where building sites are.

This driveway is shared by three of us.  Two of my neighbors clear cut their properties in the last five years. The one on the right then had the highway department dump a huge amount of gravel and rock. All of his original soil is covered under the rocky mess.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.075909,-123.9912313,20.1z

My place starts where the road curves and heads off to the right.  This is heading east. Two roads head to the right. Mine is the first one. It is rather level. There's a large gravel area at the beginning. The other road heads downhill to my neighbors place. I share more than half a mile of property line with him. Luckily he is the best neighbor around.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.0751921,-123.9907059,20.1z

Hi Ken. I posted photographs, but it's showing maps. Any ideas?

Looks like a URL issue.
Your link takes you to google maps. https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.0763127,-123.9913795,21.1z
for satellite view, the url is https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.0751392,-123.9908782,30m/data=!3m1!1e3

I'm on an Android phone. I tried moving along the road from the photo that Ken posted. I then cut and pasted the top bar. It took me back to maps.

I'd like to store a permanent record of how the property looks now or I think this is how it looked two years ago. Am I correct in assuming that this simply shows an area of the globe and the photo will change over time as they update? Perhaps I can use a laptop and do a photo capture,  so it's an actual photograph on the website rather than coordinates.

Dale, a screen capture would get you the image, not the link to the image for the location. So you could capture the image today, and again when they update with a new one, etc.

Thanks Peter and Ken. I Think I have learned how to capture a screen shot. It said clipboard and I said yes.

Ok, I thought ctrl c would do it. It didn't.

I figured out image capturing. It's a shared access road. My place starts where the road is wide and turns to the east. I own the block of trees to the left of the wide bare patch. This gravely area is a source of material for road repairs.

Continuing along the road.