Progress

It's been a busy week! It finally stopped raining and we were able to get out and work in earnest above the house in the area we want the sheep to go. I'm amazed every time we cut down a tree at how much bigger they are when they're horizontal on the ground and all that wood needs to be either cut and stacked for winter, or cut and dragged and burned as brush. It's times like these (when I'm so very tired of dragging brush) that I wish I had a few more kids :-P No..not really.

This is the base for the sheep shed/chicken coop...we've built it up quite a bit.

This is looking down the hill toward the filled in area..where Zep is is just about where the chicken coop will be.

this is looking UP the hill...we've started sticking big pine logs on the downhill side of the same area, to use as a sort of retaining wall. This method was employed by the Romans when building roads through swamps.

The burn pile...

I can see the progress and it makes me happy...I can't wait until the sun gets in there and grass starts to grow. So I decided to share some pics with all of you, because I'm nice like that...and also because this winter, when we are buried up to our necks in snow and freezing our hineys off, looking at the progress of this summer and knowing that the wood that I swore at for days on end because I hated stacking it is what is keeping that hiney warm, will make me all warm and fuzzy inside and give me something to look forward to...there is something very therapeutic about getting your hands dirty and working your land. I need all the therapy I can get after this too..because every time I see the phrase "plant a tree" I begin to twitch.
Oh! I almost forgot! We bought a little garden tractor on Saturday..its very cute..it has a backhoe and a bucket and a snow blower attachment. We had it for less than an hour..and this is where it ended up...on it's side over a bank.

The tractor (and my husband) are fine, and we learned a valuable lesson about the wheel base of this smaller model vs. the wheel base of the bigger models (My Father in law owns a big tractor that we usually borrow...so in my wonderful husbands defense he's used to the bigger more stable tractor)..of course now I'm all paranoid every time I drive it that it's going to roll over...great thing considering all of my land is on a hill :-P