Making Progress

Despite the continued uncooperative and in my opinion unecessarily cold weather, I can see some progress on the brush clean up.

I find it hard to bend when I'm all bundled up in my coveralls and other winter gear, but it can be done and is necessary in this cold although I'm sure its not pretty to look at. Nevertheless slowly the brush pile(s) is growing.

Here are a couple of pictures--one is a before. I think I've posted this before, but this is whats left of the white mulberry tree in the side yard. To the right is the woodpile, that was pretty much inaccessible for a few days, until my Dad got the chainsaw in there. And......

Ta da! This is the same area taken after this weekend. I've been working on this area off and on as I had time since the ice storm. It was on the 'high priority' list, since all the debris was blocking access to where my wood guy brings my wood---which I'm hoping he will do soon--now. All the limbs I dragged (drug?) through the gates and out into one of the pastures. A new woodpile is growing from the downed trees---you can see it in the near right hand area of the picture. There is still some wood I need to stack around the base of what's left of the tree (middle back area of picture), and a few big chunks that need sawn up, but for the most part its gone, gone, gone! Its amazing how the skyline has opened up where this tree was. I do hope to 'regrow' a mulberry in this spot. I think there will be some offshoots, and I hope to prune one to grow up very straight--with no forked branches! The white mulberry's are nice in that while the birds and other wildlife still love them, they don't leave the awful purple stains the regular mulberry's do. The white mulberry's are a bit of a rarity in this area, and I think this one was 'self seeded' by a bird or other varmint from a neighbor's tree down the road. It was about 20 years old.

Now on to the next area! I think cleaning up around the front area of the place is next. Then the ram pen...then ....... and on and on. :-0

Here are a couple shots of the rams in their pen. You can't hardly see them, but the boys are working diligently on removing the bark from the limbs, to make them lighter for me to carry (yeah, right!). There is still an occasional limb that will fall, and the boys run like greased lightening every time they hear that particular tell-tale 'crack' from a falling limb. In the first picture of the rams pen, you can kinda see the section of fence that was crushed (the only fence that I had that was completely smashed down in all the mess--which is really amazing). This fence is made out of cattle panels, so it wasn't too hard to get another panel wired in place. The squished panel is still under the tree. ..where it will likely be for awhile yet!

Yesterday was up in the 50s! It was quite windy, but very comfortable outside. I'm sure all the critters enjoyed warming up their cold bones. It was a very brief reprieve though as last night the temps went back down into the 20s with only an expected high of 30 today. Very rude awakening. I was hoping the hoses would thaw out so that for even one day I wouldn't have to carry water to the sheepies in buckets....but alas it didn't happen. I've been carrying water to them since January 11th (yes I know exactly when! ;-) as I filled up all the troughs the day before the Ice Storm! ). Its getting a little old. I was glad though that the big icebergs that have been filling up the boys tubs finally thawed enough for me to dump yesterday.

I have enough hay, barring any 'bad things happening' to last 66 more days or so. Its a grim feeling, and I'm still trying to track some down. All I can say is...if we have a decent hay season this year I'm getting twice as much as I normally do---JUST IN CASE!

Have a great day!