Timber!

See the tree labeled "this tree"? Yup, that one was slated to come down. Bob was insisting that he was going to fell it; I was equally adamant that I wanted him to remain alive (for some obscure reason...) Anyway, I recalled that my riding instructor Maiya had mentioned that her boyfriend Kyle did tree work so I thought to inquire as to whether this tree was within his abilities. He came and looked and we wound up hiring him to take down four trees altogether.

Damn! I missed the felling of the first one as I had gone to the house to retrieve my camera. Oh well. It came down clean and no one was laying on the ground crushed and dying (except the tree...) so that was good. One down and three to go!

This next tree looked nasty as it was a two-trunked monster and as you can see, Bob and Maiya were roped in to helping. The line they're pulling is hooked by a come-along to another tree further out in the swamp. The rope helps guide the tree to fall where you want it to. So while tension is placed on the right hand tree trunk, Kyle can cut it and leave the left half intact without fear of the tree twisting back and snapping. It's all a bit nerve wracking but hey! they knew what they were doing! (Me? I just take pictures and pray...)

Here Bob is demonstrating his ability to tight rope walk along the tree after it came down. Fun! I was just relieved that three trees had fallen and everyone as okay. 

And here's Maiya modeling "appropriate" footwear for logging activities. Yes, she also wears these shoes when we ride Neko. Crazy kids!

And then on to this beauty! The first one we considered having removed and the last to fall. 

Timber! Down he went! And Kyle did a superb job of landing that tree so accurately! This one had a much greater placement problem: it was inside the horse fence and between several ornamental trees (that we did not want to see damaged...) but it landed perfectly. Good job Kyle!

Now Bob has the fun of cutting up the trees for firewood (he likes this kind of activity) and we have loads of firewood to burn, not that we've had much of a winter. But wood for next year! And probably the year after that! Bob and I cleaned up the entire tree in the next two days (all gone! Already burning in our woodstoves!) I have to admit that the removal of this conspicuously dead tree really improved the view of this whole area. It was a tremendous success all around.

What We Do For Fun, Part 102

This is Maggie the Mexican Pony's field. At first glance, this may seem pretty- all those dainty white flowers. And they are pretty: millions of tiny stiff asters... which Maggie won't eat. I proposed to Bob that I would mow the field and eliminate the flowers, before they set seed.

No, we don't have a huge brush hog or a tractor or even a riding lawn mower. We have a simple push mower and Bob has a weed whacker. Together, we decided to conquer the "Back Forty". For scale, here's the lawn mower in context:

That's the lawn mower, and by the time I had taken this picture, we'd mowed and whacked nearly half the field. Not an easy task but the day was pleasantly cool/warm and the bugs weren't bad. It's sort of like that classic Barbara Kruger piece, "It's a small world until you have to clean it". Things get bigger as you push equipment through it.

Right in the middle of the field, there is a mysterious area with dead grass in it. It's about the size of a large dining table and appears to have been burned. Weird. Maybe the aliens have landed here in their miniature space ship in attempt to create our very own Area 51. We may never know!
Anyway, we did about 2/3 of the pasture in two rounds this afternoon, before and after coffee. Bob weed whacked the edge of the field so that the electric fence would once more work. Here he is, again, with a helpful pink arrow pointing at him in the distance:

 You can see the area (dimly) to the right where we haven't mowed yet. Maybe tomorrow? Can't do everything in one afternoon!

That's a zoomed in version of Bob weed whacking, with a pile of fire wood waiting to be rescued. That was one of the several reasons we had for clearing the field. This pile of wood has been there since last last spring, before the tornado. We've had so many other stacks, heaps, piles and mounds of wood that this was not a big priority. But we needed to clear so that we could drive the truck down into the pasture and move the wood. I'm waiting until cooler weather so as not to disturb hornets, snakes and other varmints who may be hiding out!

Dog and Pony Update

I haven't featured our fluffy barnyard friends recently so I decided this was as good a time as ever. Let's check in with Maggie the Mexican Pony and Jules the (Perfect) Dog.
This is what greeted me in the field today:

Maggie spent a good part of the night shellacing herself in mud. Do we remember that Maggie is a BLACK horse? Here's a detail of her back end:

She looks like a brown and black zebra! After thirty minutes of currying and brushing, she looked marginally better but wherever you touched her, puffs of dust arose. In addition, she has thoughtfully whacked her foot on a frozen chunk of mud (I am conjecturing...) and took a big piece of her hind hoof off. Ouch. No pictures of the damaged foot- it's too pathetic!- but here's her other side. It's a bit more presentable:

At this stage of the winter, with all the fuzzy coat, it's almost impossible to clean them. Maggie resembles and old sofa in a basement rec room.
And Jules? Yes, the Perfect Dog continues his winning ways.

There he is, contemplating his very favorite activity. (Hint: it has something to do with chasing small round things.) Maybe he's waiting for snow. He does like snow, unlike the rest of us. But in the meantime, Jules has made himself super useful by providing logs for the wood stoves. Most mornings, he selects a log or stick from our walk and carries it back home. Our neighbors find this highly entertaining, especially when he chooses an especially long branch and he looks over his shoulder, expecting me to pick up the other end and help him carry it home. We then proceed up the road like a yoke of oxen. How perverse is it that he makes me work on our walks?

But there's a new twist. Jules is pretty smart and he figured out how to correctly train me. Several times recently, he picked out a log that was a bit too wide around to fit comfortably in his mouth. He struggled with lifting it and I'd try and help but I found myself carrying his log, with Jules glancing approvingly at me. I have become a log valet for the dog!