Surprise Visit

We were sitting in Mom's living room today and movement caught my eye out the window.  I jabbered about a wild cat, but Mom thought it was just a stray house cat. I grabbed my camera and the long lens and started shooting.  Yup, a small bobcat!  The quality isn't the greatest, shooting through two dirty windows, but I'm excited to add these to my collection of wildlife photos.

 

Phase One

Tree cutting has commenced!
I hired a local logger to come in and cut trees that might present a problem around the area where I plan to build my barn, as well as a few ugly trees that really needed to go because...well, they were ugly.

The barn area:

December 20

 

December 22

 December 24

And the ugly trees - two big, twisty pines and one bushy cherry.

December 20

December 22

December 24

I can't get over how open that section of pasture looks now; amazing what removing a couple old trees can do.

The old run-in shed has seen better days and will most likely be torn down at some point, so in preparation of that I had them take the nasty cherry trees that flanked it.  Mom wanted to save the small chestnut tree that grew beside it, so that will remain. 

 Before

 

One cherry down!

 After

In the future, I'd like to replace the run-in with a similar sized stick built greenhouse/conservatory.  Something more Victorian rather than the plastic wrapped style most often seen.  We'll see.

So that's where we are now, lots of open space and lots of ability to see that even more needs to be cut!  There are so many overgrown pines and standing dead trees and nasty cherries that it makes my head spin, but one step at a time.  The next phase is to have a proper building plan drawn up for the addition and to upgrade the existing septic system.  It's all very exciting!