What Goes Up, Must Come Down

Most people use their July 4th holiday to spend time with friends, throw a few cold ones back, and enjoy the dog days of summer. As I’m sure you already guessed, with as much work that needs to be done around here a relaxing day just wasn’t going to happen. We were up bright and early to finish planting the fruit trees, continue our battle weeding the vegetables, and harvesting what’s come up already! We ended up with two laundry baskets filled with spinach and arugula, butter leaf lettuce, between 6-8pounds of radishes, a handful of beets, zucchini and summer squash, a few tomatoes as well as a few bowlfuls of wild raspberries and mullberries. It’s nice to see all of our hard work starting to pay off!

Chris has been dying to start chopping down the trees the house since we moved in back in January. After inheriting a new chainsaw from my aunt and uncle during their move he decided there was no time like the present. As you can see from the picture taken in the 1950s, the old oak tree was present then!

Since that time, it’s started to push up the front of the house where the deck was added on and the branches have grown so big it blocks our incredible view of the valley and mountains further west. We wanted to leave the tree for shade and sentimental reasons so we trimmed it up. As you can see from the before and after pictures, what a difference it made!

After the old oak we tackled the mature apple trees on the property which are located right next to what is actually the back door of the house. Chris gleefully chopped all the dead branches down and opened up some space between the trees. It was like watching a teenage girl who thinks she wants bangs trimming her own hair – hoping for the best but anticipating disaster. I have to admit, but by the time he was finished it did look pretty good, much unlike the first time I gave myself bangs. It also helped to open up the original stone wall and wood-burning grill.

Now – what the heck do we do with all this wood?! Our burn pile is already 10 feet tall by 30 feet wide and growing by the weekend. Our next project, in our free time (ha!) will be cutting the wood up for the woodstove. We ended the night by watching fireworks right from the comfort of our own deck. We’re going to be sore tomorrow but this house, this property…it’s all worth it.