Fran and Heather have come for their second visit and the weather has been very uncooperative. It was in the high 80s when they arrived and now its in the mid-50s and stormy. But they are troopers and are enjoying all the activity. We also had to make a tough choice to take out the two trees that were the sentinals of our front sidewalk. One was a Tulip Poplar and the other a huge Elm and you cant have two worse trees that close to your house. They were hanging over the house and one was split down the trunk and the Elm was causing foundation issues so we decided to remove them. We will redo some of the landscaping once the 13 year Ciccada hatch is over but for now we can at least breath a little easier and not worry every time we have a storm or the wind blows.
Heather and Holly have been trying to get in some planting in between the storms. So far we have fared pretty well and not lost much but its a challenge this year.
Bandit is always close by to supervise.
Holly's grandmother Fran is 91 years old and made this trip from Seattle, she has enjoyed the calfs and farm life.
Heather is an animal lover with her own menagerie at home so feeding Maybelle was a natural.
Four generations in this picture. Makes you appreciate family and to enjoy every moment.
Everyone gets along on this farm. We got this old blue chair at a yard sale for $15.00 and its a favorite of Bandit and Boo Boo and they have learned to share. Animals can be a pain sometimes but they add so much to our lives and I find they give me a sense of peace and well being.
These trees looked great but they were at the end of their lives and the Elm on the righ was split right down the trunk and both were hanging over the house and causing foundation issues....so they had to go.
We hired a couple local guys to take them out because; a. they know what they are doing; b. Holly and I dont like heights; c. they were insured....and; d. they were insured. They had to miss the house and garage, miss the garage, miss the power lines, and most importantly, miss Judy's many plantings around the house.
I cut up over 2 cords of wood to season for next winter and we hauled all the brush and branches to our slash pile in the back pasture.
You can see how big these were and how worried we have been. We constantly had branches landing on the driveway and had to move all the vehicles every time there was wind. The top of the poplar on the left just snapped off when the guy was trying to cut it....could have come through the roof in a strong wind and luckily he had already roped it off.
Thelma and Louise stayed in the front pasture most of the time checking things out and you can see another calf in this picture that is just over the fence. The neighboring farm has about 13 cows and calves in the pasture next to us right now and Thema and Louise have been playing with them...literally.
Thankfully Holly and Heather jumped right in and we cut, hauled and stacked all the wood and brush in less than a day.
You can really see in this picture how far over the trees were leaning and it was a little nerve wracking watching them take them down..there were a couple of close calls but no damage.
So it looks different but better than I imagined. We will plant three 20 foot maples; two in the front yard (but far enough away from the house) and one to the right of this picture, along with some Viburnum on either side of the fron walk and a big Japanese maple in the court yard between the french door and the propane tank. We will also have concrete planters filled with flowers on the old stumps.
And finally, we have a jump on cutting wood for the outside wood boiler. The larger pieces will be split with the wood splitter and the other smaller pieces have already been neatly stacked.
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