a welcomed break from the rain

 That's right.  A few months ago I was worried that we were headed into the 2025 growing season with a drought looming over us, but thanks to weeks and weeks of rain, the entire state of New Hampshire is now out of the danger zone.  It rained to the point that everything grew exponentially well.  Lawns, perennials, and most annoyingly, weeds.  I was losing any faith that I might get started on some projects, when a ray of hope finally lifted me - the young men I'd talked to about clearing the trees that had fallen on my fence last April finally showed up.  I wept, joyfully.  

I had hoped they would get here earlier in the year, before the tangle of bittersweet leafed out and made things more complicated.  On April 6th, I had sent them these photos:

 

 

 

But then it snowed, and then it rained, and it rained some more, and some more, and then it rained again, but eventually we had a dry day and they appeared like images of saints on burnt toast.  They took care of the bigger chunks of the downed pine and left me the top part to deal with, which was the most entangled in bittersweet, and they cleared all of the three smaller trees at the bottom of the pasture that had fallen.

So I was faced with this mess to clean up on my own.

 

This weekend, I hauled out my trusty wheeled trimmer and the riding mower, and started hacking back the bittersweet and overgrown mess. 

I was able to get enough cleared to open up the area I plan to develop as a second dry lot, and start on the tree top mess on the outside of the fence.

I still have a lot to go, but I'm feeling really good about what I accomplished so far.  Plus...18,000+ steps.  😉