Pinyon are on the list for our area, problem is no nurseries carry them since so many died off from bark beetles.
http://uanews.org/node/11668
My van der wolff pines do very well, but I have to keep them close enough to the house to water them. i had forgotten about the chinese junipers. They do well. I have some in the yard that are old and huge. I do have to spray them for bagworms every year.
Our pond is 15-20' feet deep in the middle. It's 50-75' across, and it runs the whole length of the property, which is a square 10 acres, so I'm not sure how many feet long that is without digging out the survey. Another creek runs east and west on the south side of the property, but it's usually a shallow bog. The other two sides are fenced but we don't have gates on the drive on that side. When it's rainy, the driveway on the pond side is impassable. (we have a low water bridge).
Last year I was browsing craigslist and found a guy selling old railroad bridge timbers. We bought them and made a dock reaching out over the water. We still have not put decking on it, but it's a neat place to sit. The timbers were so old they had lost more of their creosote smell. My labrador loves jumping off it to chase bumpers.
Don't be too jealous, the house that came with the cool property is a money pit. the foundation was crumbling, termites had eaten the structure, the plumbing, electrical and HVAC all were useless. We even had to replace the roof, windows, doors, flooring and fixtures. We finally got rid of the snakes, spiders, and rats but we kept the bats, bees and lizards. It's been a challenge. Neighbors even warned us it was haunted. There was a violent crime here and the former owner deserted it.
Not a place most people would take on. I saw it as a wonderful place to plant roses. My husband saw it as a place to fish and hunt right off his porch. He doesn't hunt here, but there's enough room to train retrievers and shoot his bow. That's hard to find near the city.
