Fall 2009

We spent a lot of time during the late summer and fall of 2009 clearing parts of the property. The entire lot is covered in scrub oak. If you're not from the west, you may not be familiar with scrub oak. As I'm from the midwest, I had not heard of it. I'm sure people from around here are fond of it, but in my estimation it's the most worthless stuff you can imagine. It's a mix of a tree and shrub. It's short and not straight, so you can't use it for logs of any type and it's not tall enough for shade. Plus, it has very hard bark like a tree but is short with a lot of offshoots like a shrub. The roots are also really difficult to pull out because they spread out a lot underground. Thus ends my complaining of scrub oak.

We decided to get started on the clearing both to save money on excavating, but also to feel like we were accomplishing something. You can sort of tell how much we cleared.

We also wanted to clear a spot and put up a shed so we could store tools, etc up there. In order to put up the shed we had to clear the spot and a drive as well as level out the area. Kenyon made a pad complete with pipes to drain underneath the shed. The shed is back to the left in this picture. Again, you can sort of tell how much we cleared last fall.

With the leaves off, and some clearing done, you can see how our lake view is improving.

This is the massive mulch pile we made with a lot of the trees we cleared - but not even all of them! We decided to leave the pile there until spring when we might have need of it.