AlachuWay’s Timeline by Leela Robinson.
June 2026: Without maintenance, a pond will eventually fill in. A local site prep company owned by neighbor Clint Davis is onsite with an excavator to clean out the pond. This is a big job, and not a pretty one in the short term. However, Sunrise Pond will be restored to a little lake for us to enjoy.
Another neighbor was big, affordable help with the sweetgum tree stumps, brought his tractor and stump grinder. Thanks Ed!
May 2026: The divorce is final and the land is now in my name only. With a debt only of gratitude, I make my way with the love and TLC of phenomenal friends, family, community.
December 2025: Neighbor Emory has been hired to help clear debris and overgrowth from the land. Broken down fencing around the pond is removed. A lot of sweetgum trees and Chinese tallow trees are removed. Native trees such as pond cypress and live oaks will be planted in time.
November 2025: Moved onto the land with the help of over 20 friends and family. The distance of the move was short, a few hundred feet from the barn at Deep Spring Farm to the east 12.6 acres that I named AlachuWay. Well, septic, and electric are installed.
2025-2023: It is mostly me working on the land. My husband and I are divorcing and he is no longer interested in maintaining the land. I hire mowing and weedeating. I have been mucking out the pond for years to build up the pond banks. The pond is becoming overgrown with spatterdock pond lily. This yellow blooming aquatic plant is native, but also aggressive. Sunrise pond is about 12′ deep, and has shallow edges perfect for spatterdock to multiply.
2022-2018: The land was benignly neglected for many years and requires significant time and effort to clean it up. There is more than enough to keep busy. There is plenty of trash and farm debris. The fence rows are grown up and the fences are broken down. We work at cleaning up downed trees and making it possible to mow and weed eat. I begin landscaping, but no crops or other improvements are made.
2018: Janet lost Jack to cancer. She spoke to me about wanting me to own the land that I wanted. She made it possible for my husband and I to acquire 12.6 acres with 2 acre pond. I name it Sunrise Pond. My first move is to get cattle out of the pond and off the land. The open fields will be mowed for hay, rather than pasture, and there will be no more livestock in the springfed pond. We host a music festival benefit for Florida Springs Institute, and guests camp out around the pond and trees. There are several massive live oak trees.
2017: I speak to Jack and Janet about the adjacent land with pond and my desire to own and manage it myself. They understand, but the price is not one I can manage.
2015: Then husband and I established Deep Spring Farm with organic blueberries. The land to the east is cattle pasture and cows are in the pond. Jack Matthews owns the land and comes to fish for large mouth bass periodically. The Matthews family owned land in the region for generations. Jack tells colorful stories of growing up on thousands of acres in Alachua County near the Upper Santa Fe River. He hunted and fished and camped and had all sorts of adventures.
