Falling

We are in full-on Autumn.  Himself can blow the grounds clear of leaves daily, only to wake up with a new carpet laid down over night. It's time to clean up, winterize, settle ourselves and the house for winter.

We spent one weekend clearing brush in the back. The cedar deadfalls that ring the cleared part of the property have always been on the list of things that need attention, and attention they got. My parents sad little chainsaw wasn't up to the challenge, which justified a new one for Himself as his birthday gift from me. We spent most of one weekend with assorted implements of destruction, cutting back thorn canes and Russian olive, ragweed and pokeberry all overgrown and out of control. We engaged the enemy in the northwest corner, working our way slowly eastward, gradually gaining ground. 

Deconstructing the dead-falls was an exercise in engineering and planning, untangling one fallen tree from another. Pulling brush and weeds out to the tarps, pulling the full tarps one by one to the curb ahead of the town's schedule brush pick-up week. Gradually, we cleared enough out to take one whole dead tree out, and then another. Himself limbed each and we stacked them to the side of the shed where his friend would eventually come to collect them.

We found treasure - 7 concrete cylinders, about 12" tall by 6" in diameter. They were not all together but were in the same area. Their provenance is a mystery, and I wonder if more lurk under fallen trees we have yet to conquer.

The reclamation of the woods edge is not complete, nor do I expect that it will be any time soon. But we have started and we can see progress, and that may be enough to entice us to engage the enemy another weekend if the weather and our bodies cooperate.

At the end of the weekend's efforts, we walked into the woods that are hidden from the house by the dead-falls. The Boy and Himself had made this trip before but I had not.  It's all cedars back there, straight through to the power lines. No underbrush, just cedar duff and dead limbs, some empty beer bottles and forgotten golf balls.  Once under the power lines, the undergrowth slows your travels, but provides cover for a woodchuck or skunk den and another larger den a bit away. Fox? Raccoon?

I am happy to stand out there and look around...no property is clear close up to that point. I hope that it stays that way. Knowing the wildlife might find a bit of sanctuary in our part of suburbia...well now, that makes the sore shoulders from hauling tarps and caretaking the land very much worthwhile.