Damages and Images: Part Two, Clean Up Begins

Continued from yesterday morning

Since I have been in earth moving mode and knowing I need a decent parking place for visitors to the Farm and Market Shed I tackled the parking area yesterday (Tuesday).

Removing all the peat like top soil, smoothing out the naked clay layer, ready for some foundational fill dirt (rock and sandy loamy clay). I have several big artificial hills of the sandy loamy clay in the pasture that I have been meaning to move.  But the fill rock? (not to be confused with Phil Rock), that is out back, piles and piles of it from when Dale had our youngest daughters out there all one summer picking rocks out of the “new” hay fields.

Unfortunately there is a big mess between us and the rocks. The road through our pastures and out through our woodlot to Norine’s hay fields is a bit of a mess. Bet and I took a walk out to the beaver dams a week after snow and icemagedon and took the following pictures.  They are in order, working from the hay fields back to the pasture gate.(The first two are of the road the day the big snow came, before the ice)  Each one is a whole new set of downed trees, mostly alder.

I’m not in too big of a hurry to tackle this mess, I have nightmares of 2004, when I had to quickly remove the three trunked, sixty foot, silver maple off of our backyard so that we could re-landscape in time for Michelle’s wedding.  My forearms were swollen and purple for a month. 

Not sure I want to leave it just to Dirt, not that he has tons of time either, plus I would love to harvest out the nice straight logs so the grandboys and I can build a log house for our Leif Erickson celebration.  Dirt might not see the need to do that extra step.   

 And I would love to do it so that it could also be a little hut for my black lagoon hidden pub (is that a contradiction?) The hut would be the highlight of a nature trail that would leave from the back yard, cross over a main water way, wind through our fern filled woodlot, creep along the edge of the big main pond and eventual end up here at the black lagoon. I was disappointed to see that one of my favorite mossy trees came down over the swamp.

But then it could happen that it adds even more character to the space.  The top of the tree is on the edge of the high ground where Bet and I have determined to put in a lovely little gathering area to have a beer and sandwich in the heat of the summer,

or come and snuggle under quilts in the spring among the fragrance of skunk cabbage, poplar resin and listen to the cacophony of mating, nesting, birds.

I know, it seems crazy to be thinking of this project now, when just digging out of the basic mess and keeping up with have to’s ought to keep us busy for … ever.   But it is so tempting to chisel away at it, at least a little.  The ice covered snow not only brought down branches, broke trees in half and pulled others up by their roots, it also flattened the underbrush.  It is amazing how clear it is under the forest canopy right now, very unusual for the murky damp west side of the Cascades. It sure makes it a whole lot easier to see the terrain. 

Oh well, if we get to it, it will be a fun project, if not, nothin’ new, there are lots of things we dream up that we don’t quite get to.  But I do need to get to the rock piles.  Soon.  Thanks for coming by Dear Reader see you soon I’m sure.  Now I’m off to some yellow light before bed.