Clearing the Land: Rained Out

Rain came through Wednesday night and it stayed with us all day Thursday. Needless to say, no progress on the land.

Kissing a Tree

I probably should mention that I kind of backed into a tree on Tuesday when leaving the homestead in the afternoon. I could claim that the tree moved (there was a lot happening with the woods that day), but I think it’s more likely that the dozer guy left that tree on purpose.  You know that sinking feeling you have after the sudden stop and the sound of shattered plastic? It was confirmed when I looked at the back.

Notice the dent in the bumper and the cool custom tail light. I found a replacement for $82 off the internet. So, after pounding out a dimple in the bumper so the tail gate closes all the way and replacing the tail light, it will be as good as new. Poor truck. (What you can’t see are all the other souvenirs left on the bumper, at least one of which was a gift from my favorite daughter-in-law.  Thanks Abbie.)

Power Easement

We did go out today to see how things looked and work out the details of where to cut the power line easement (30 feet wide swath that will extend from the back north-west corner of the cleared lot to the nearest transformer, 900 feet away).

The Pond and the Mud

The road we put in from the end of Nettleton to our gate was fine, but the road from the gate to the clearing (about 1800 feet) was a mess. We will definitely need to lay down a ton (actually closer to 350 ton) of rock. That will be the next project after it dries out next week.

While there, I went down by the pond because the tree frogs were really singing. I took a little footage to capture the moment (I love that sound):

The pond is kind of a mess with the recent rains. Sometime in the future, I’ll have Paul come back and drain it and dig it out and expand it a little. Although I hate to disturb the little pond creatures living in it, clearing out the decades of muck at the bottom will improve the health of the whole system, allow us to stock it with fish, and provide a lot of great silty soil supplement for the garden.

As you can see, the place was a mud hole. And yes, I got stuck. I never get stuck. In fact, this is the first time I’ve gotten stuck in this Tundra. Very embarrassing. Thankfully, Paul was still there with the dozer. He fired it up and pulled me clear. No problem, except a very muddy truck.

After hosing it down, all was good in the world again. The mail man showed up about this time and asked if I’d had enough rain. I really didn’t get what he meant until I offered to wash his mail-mobile, when he explained that it would surely rain again if I washed anything else on wheels. We’ll see.