The garden fellow I'd contacted and who assessed the garden a few weeks back came back out yesterday. The initial step is to chart the entire garden, get accurate measurements of the layout and identify all the significant trees with a full report on each etc.

One very cool thing is that he mentioned a number of the trees were not only historically significant (came up last time) but that some of them were a bit rare and well worth propagating and he'd be happy to help show me how. So cool!!!

The other week on AB there was a thread about "what I want to be when I grow up" the gist of my answer being:
* dog trainer (but more on line of consulting behaviourist style and as I mentioned last year the qualifications I'd prefer to do for it are overseas... natch!)
* farmer-but niche/hobby farmish. I'm moving towards at a good clip even if I'd prefer to have the thousands of dollars of disposable income to do it all yesterday instead of as we can afford it. IE Sheep, farm gate veggies/fruits/eggs, lambs/wool, chickens/fertile settings/young birds and sale of breeding quality adults etc
* something to do with gardens - intending to be sort of an extension of "want to be a farmer-but-not-a-real-one" thought, most likely small scale production of cottage garden plants and herbs
* and one I'd had in the back of my mind for quite awhile but never seriously pursued would be fine arts courses with the end goal being focused on sculpting/casting bronze garden sculptures and animal portraiture as I've never had classes but enjoy sketching and such and there is plenty of space for a small studio nestled in the garden.

I know several people reading who will be grinning and shaking their heads ruefully, "all this time and you still don't know what you want to do, do you?" But I think the reality of it is I don't see why I have to pick. I've got lots of time, so why not do them all? They're all small scale and complimentary. So (and here's where this ties in to the garden fellow bit) it's super neat that through renovating my garden I'll also be furthering the realization of these goals. It's interesting how things unfold opportunities you hadn't seen isn't it?