January

This past Saturday we spent time clearing some of the wood and stuff from the house.  We have still not made it to the front door.  Jackson drove the Lawn tractor with a trailer.  He loaded and unloaded several loads.  We think we should invest in a larger trailer for him to haul around,  he is such a big help.  Cooper was happy to be at a friends for a sleep over.  We did get the dumpster mostly full and ready to be picked up.  Also, our burn pile is getting quite huge!

Sunday we had a load of wood delivered to our real house as we are having a hard time keeping up with our wood consumption rate.  We did get our first propane bill since installying the stove and we used about 1/3 of what we used last winter and we have ben much warmer.  That is a 2/3 savings! The delivery guy must deliver gravel during the week so we ended up with 3/4 cord of wood and 1/4 cord of gravel.

Being industrious people,  we put the gravel in buckets and hauled it out to Watermark Woods.  We filled in some low spots in the driveway.  It was a misty rainy day, but we were really proud of ourselves for finding a use for the gravel and following thru.

Today I bought a machete and went out the woods to wack away some of the brush by where I'd like to put the garden this spring.  When I arrived there was a tree down in the drive way from the storm on Monday.  I moved the tree away branch by branch then continued on my way.  The spot where we had dumped our gravel was completely washed away from the storm.  Insert some swear words here.  So much had washed away I was afraid to drive on it as I might get stuck.  I could see that the driveway was built of bricks and some of our concrete cylinders before they layed down the gravel.  That was kind of cool information to learn.  We still scratch our heads trying to figure out why there are so many of those cylinders.

Now we need to make some driveway repairs before the dumpster truck can get in.  Also,  my machete was very dull and I didn't get much brush wacked away. Today was very disheartening.  If only we could get some better weather, but this weekend they are calling for snow again.

Oh Deer!

Saturday was a big day in the woods.  Chris got his first deer ever.  It is anterless season in VA so he took a doe.  With the help of Chris G,  they field dressed the deer and on Sunday the 2 Chris' and Julie processed the deer into tenderloin steaks, a roast and lots of ground meat.  Now our freezer is full.  We figure we got 30 packages of meat(30 meals) from the deer.  That will help out with the grocery budget!

After the kill on Saturday the whole family helped the Gearharts drop a huge, dead, black cherry tree in their yard.  Chris B did most of the chain sawing and now has the know how when we need to do that on our own property.   Everyone else hauled the wood up to the woodshed.  As parents we were so impressed with our own children.  Jackson G. gave Jackson B and Cooper a lesson in wood splitting.  Cooper chopped for about an hour.  He really enjoyed using a real axe; and was super proud of the pieces of wood he contributed.  Jackson worked about 3 hours and reall got thru a lot of wood. 

We all learned a lot this weekend from forrestry to butchering.  Photos to come later......

Brrrrrrrrr

It is just too darn cold to go work in the woods.  We are going to go dig a soil sample to send into the extension office this weekend.  I am sure that the frozen ground will yield easily to our mighty shovel.