Chapter 52...A Horse And A Half...And Culverts

Off Grid...Chapter 52 It is almost Spring. Woo hoo. This week started out as great as last week ended. Monday 3-9 This morning Mike and I decided to go over and do the Spring cleaning at our other property. We have to repair some fencing, clean up dead trees, pick up garbage and any fallen branches. First thing we do is load up the trailer with all of our tools. Next we stop at our dirt pile on this property and fill some buckets. Here I am filling some buckets with dirt. We get to the other property and take a slow ride around the perimeter of the property. We tightened some loose wire on the fence, we picked up some trash, and we also picked up branches. Each year the clean up on this property gets easy and easier. Our first real stop is at the fence that is along the side of the road. The fence that needs to be repaired. Mike and I untangled all three wires, pulled then tight with the stretcher, and stapled the wires to the pole. Mike and I fixed to fence. Here is a view from the back of this property. It's a beautiful piece and I would love to combine this property with our new property. That would be an incredible piece of property. I walked over to say hello to our neighbors. This little guy is Twister. And his best friend. They are pretty cute for a "horse and a half". Here is another view from the back of our property and you can just barely see the back ponds off to the right. Next we drove to the front of the property and started looking for any dead trees. Mike and I tried planting 3 different kinds of trees on this property and the ones that do the best are the Leyland Cypress. I wish we knew that the first year of planting, lol. Here I am digging out a dead Hemlock. We have two dead Frasier Firs that we have to pull out. We get to the first one and instead of digging it Mike hooks one end of a chain around the tree and the other end to the trailer. While I hold the chain tight, so it doesn't slip off the trailer, Mike gets in the jeep and slowly pulls forward. The tree is out. Once the tree is out of the ground I start filling in the hole with the dirt we brought from our other property. We come across one more Frasier and do the same thing. Off to the next task. We had a tree that fell into the pond over the winter so we need to get it out and clean up. Mike gets out the chain saw and starts cutting. Once it is all cut up we load everything onto the trailer and strap it down. We will dump all this debris onto our burn pile at the new property. On our way home we stop at the building supply for more concrete(Quickrete) bags. Now we have work for tomorrow. Later that day we got a cool picture of some of the Turkeys "fanning" out. Tuesday 3-10 It's another beautiful day. Today we went down to our entrance gate to replace the pole and wire on the opposite side of the one we did the other day. This is the original pole and fencing. We cut all the wire on the pole and the old fencing. Then we knock all the old boards down. Next we hook one end of the chain around the pole and the other end of the chain to the tractor bucket and pull it out. The old post is out. Then we use the heavy bar and the post hole digger to make the hole a little bigger and deeper. Next I start mixing the concrete using the creek water. Next Mike puts the new pole into the ground, which he has already cut down, and he makes sure it is level and straight. Then I start shoveling the concrete into the hole. We used 160 pounds of concrete in this hole. This post shouldn't go anywhere. Here is mike adding on more wire. This is just a temporary fix until we can come down with the stretcher after the concrete is hard.. We are done until the concrete sets. Later that day we load up the tractor with some shovels and go to check out our culvert. The culvert is starting to fill up again. Here is what I call my side because I always end up working on this side of the culvert. This is Mike's side. We shoveled out one tractor bucket full of mud. Next time we go to the dump we are going to ask the guys there if we can borrow a tire. With a tire, rebar, and some chain we should be able to clear this culvert. Now if the weather holds we can get this job done. We picked up rocks and loaded them into the bucket. We made a small dam above the culvert in hopes that the dirt/mud would back up here instead of clogging the culvert. It would be much easier to clean the mud out here. Wednesday and Thursday- The cold weather is back. I am so happy we got as much work done as we did these past few days. Friday 3-13 Another cold day so Mike and I went into the "big" town to pick up supplies for him to work on the motor home. I think we are better off staying at home. It seems like every time we go to town we spend a small fortune. Saturday 3-14 Oh yuk it's cold and raining. Nothing to do but clean the house. Sunday 3-15 It rained all night and through the morning but at least it is warming up. Here is a cool picture of the fog rolling in. After the rain stopped we went over to help Nicole install and plumb her new kitchen sink. She is remodeling her kitchen on her own and she is doing a great job. She is just like her father. Well that was our week. Hopefully the weather will stay warm and we can get a lot of work done. Our list seems endless but it won't be as hard as last summer, lol. I hope you all enjoyed our story. Lisa