With our portion of the house renovations on hold, Steve and I took some time to explore our couple of acres of property and made some plans to improve it’s usability.
The immediate area around the house was already cleared with plenty of room for a large garden (hopefully next year), sitting area, and plenty of space for the dogs to run. It will need a good grading and some decent grass, so once the exterior house renovations are done, we’ll hire someone to do that.
The rest of our property, a couple acres, are wooded (photo taken last fall) and not easily accessed, especially when everything is leafed out.
We came up with a couple ideas of what to do with this space.
The first involved an area that’s directly east of our house and down the hill into the valley and measures about 75 yards by 150 yards. It’s the space that was originally cleared in the late 1930’s for timber to build the house (it was milled right on site, pretty cool, hey?).
It was overgrown with a striking absence of mature trees making it easy to see the outline of the area. Abruptly at the edges are very tall and very old ash, sweet gum and sycamore trees, surrounded by very dense brush.
Our plan: re-clear a good portion of it and since mid-February I have been doing just that.
I’ve developed a system of cutting things down with a pruner/lopper, raking it onto a tarp (Steve’s ingenious idea), dragging it up the hill, dumping it into a pile and at then end of the day, I burn it. (Steve teases me that I am likely the only person who rakes the forest, but oh well it looks great!)
I’ve cleared the area from the tree in the upper right corner of the picture, down the hill to where the brush starts and from the chicken coop (wood structure in the distance) to just behind where I am standing to take the picture.
At some point we’ll need machinery to clear out the trees that have fallen, remove stumps… but that will have to wait until Steve has full use of his shoulder.
Spring has been early for us and everything has leafed out so this project has been put on hold until the leaves fall once again.
The other area of land we have, further east and south, is heavily wooded and it’ll remain that way, however our plan: re-clear an old trail we found running through it and cut out a new trail around the edge of the property.
Steve volunteered for that job after being cooped up all winter and early spring recuperating from his shoulder surgery. He armed himself with an old broom handle and beat back the brush along the north lot line
and along the existing trail.
We’ll need machinery to clear the rest of the lot line but that too will have to wait until late fall/winter when the leaves fall making it easier to navigate the area.
While exploring the southern part of our property we found the stone foundation of the original house that was constructed onsite for the family to live in temporarily while the permanent house was being built.
Eventually we’ll clear the brush out to get a better look. We’ll have to ask our neighbor (the son of the original owner) what year it was built, how long they lived in it before the main house was completed and what the structure was like.
It’s been and will continue to be an amazing adventure!
Keep it simple and be sure to do it with sass!
Kim
Lots of hard work, but it will be so nice when it’s all cleared out. Fun to be out exploring and learning more about your property.
Yes it will be wonderful to have it cleared permanently. You can come join in all the fun anytime!
An exciting adventure ya’ll have decide to take and right on your own property. Do hope we can come visit and see it for real!!
There is always something to keep us busy. We can’t wait to dig out the foundation of the temporary house and see if we can salvage any of the stone for some project.
Wish I were there to supervise Steve on the proper way to swing that broom handle !! Good job Kim on the Blog, we enjoy reading it. I get exhausted watching Earl from inside the house as he does so much yard work. Ha!! Love Mom “B”
They’ll be plenty of other opportunities for you to supervise his technique. Can’t wait to show it all in person!