Before and After

We've been working hard this summer, trying to tame the wilds, to get the property ready for winter. Sometimes it's been hard to see progress, so it's been fun to go back and look at pictures, to see how much progress we've made.

One of my projects has been to clear a new road up into where the old cabin was. The old timers were good at picking out the best land, so I've followed their trail and started clearing things out where the old structures were. The overgrowth was so impenetrable, that it's been hard to figure out what exactly is there.

Here's a before shot of my first foray, with the bulldozer, into the area where I want the road.

From 2011-09-06

And here is the after shot. It was a lot of work to get to this point. It's now ready to put down some gravel.

From 2011-09-06

One of the hardest parts of clearing is getting rid of the all the cut down trees. We've been moving the stumps, branches and tree tops to the burn pile in preparation for our third or fourth bonfire of the year. This is what the burn area looks like before starting to pile things up.

From 2011-09-06

And here's one of the smaller piles we plan to burn. I used to do much bigger ones, but the big ones are just too scary. It's very nerve wracking to see the 30 foot flame kissing the tree tops when the wind kicks up. The heat gets so intense that it kills living trees up to 20 yards way. Thank goodness for humidity.

From 2011-09-06

The other project, this summer, has been to clear out the corral in preparation for planting trees. Here's a before shot that shows how thick the brush and trees were. Actually, it was even worse when we started. This is after a month of the goats eating it down.

From 2011-09-06

After a lot of hard, hard work, we finally have it ready to plant grass. We just need to wait for the weather to get right. It's going to look really nice when it's all done.

From 2011-09-06

And lastly, the tools of the trade.

From 2011-09-06