Never a dull moment

Kaboom. This is the oak that fell next to the old red shed.

In the first photo, you can see the wood stacked up by Olive

and her hubby in late April.
A slippery elm fell over after
a wet heavy snowfall.

The old oak fell right on a metal fence post and drove it another foot into the ground. The thing I love about my enduro soft fencing is that I can repair it so easily. I just rerouted the fence to go around the fallen tree and it was all good until my neighbor came down.

This photo shows the base of the tree. The one part that is leaning to the right is also dead and hung up in another oak. It may come down yet this winter or years from now. There is nothing holding it in the ground.

My neighbor and I decided to just ignore that for now. I will have to hunt around and get someone with some equipment and insurance to come out and do some work for me.  A dozer could push the whole works over and be done with it.

As it is, it may one day fall and crush my little shed.

Justin did some quick and hard work. He also set aside some nice oak firewood that he'll pick up at some point.

I spent all day cutting up branches with a nipper and rolling rotten chunks of wood to the fire. At least it was 34 degrees out so it was comfortable working hard. I am pooped! 

Tomorrow the neighborhood children will come to trick or treat and show Rich and I their costumes! What nice people I have on our road! Parents making sure that the housebound veteran gets to see kids in costumes. I am really quite lucky. There are 3 homes on our ridge that have children now. What a delight. 

Charlie got a costume to greet children with.
HE is not impressed.

Then he yawned and I got this! He looks frightening. But he isn't.

My cellphone catches more than one shot when the subject is moving. I thought the yawning was hilarious.

Never a dull moment at our place.

Crazy

Wednesday:Trees fall down...
We have had so much rain this month that trees are just tipping over. Of course most of the mess is behind our little red shed.
This has been a problem all summer long since the giant oak fell over. The oak fell on a box elder and split it and took three other trees and bent them over at the same time.

One locust was damaged, an elm lost its top and was caught up in another small oak tree.
That one decided to just complete its fall the day before yesterday.

I did what any person with electric rope fencing might do. I restrung it over and under the downed trees.
Fence restored and ready for the next small disaster.

I spent most of the afternoon cutting weeds off from the cattle's wood pasture fence. I've given up on maintaining the Merry Meadow, Rich can't trim the pasture with the tractor and brush hog this year. I'm pulling the mules out of there as the pasture is not very good and very weedy.
The burdock is getting pretty bad there too. I have 5 mules with burdock tails to clean up.

I won't put them back in that section again. The Meadow is not our land but we have kept it mowed and cleaned for over 10 years so that the absent landowner could drive through it during deer hunting season.

Now absent landowner wants to charge us for keeping the weeds clipped and grazing it.
Since we sold off most of the equine, there is no reason to keep trying to maintain land that isn't ours.

Saturday morning was incredible. I didn't think I'd go up to the ridge to watch the sun come up, but for some reason I decided to go and take a peek.
It was worth the effort.

I tried a new method of trying to catch both the sunrise and the foreground with the camera.

I liked this result. I focused for the sky for shot number one, and focused on the soybeans for shot number two. I used a tripod of course to keep things steady.
I merged the two shots together and am pleased with the outcome.

When I drove back to the house I was met by Little Richard, the guard pony. What a hoot. He has no fear of machinery or vehicles. I love it that he will stand in the driveway and wait for you to come out and pet him.
He will move then.

On Thursday we went fishing. Rich loves to fish. I know there are things I need to be doing at home but since his stroke Rich finds fishing to be comforting and peaceful.

And Friday night we ate like Kings. Fresh produce from the garden along with fresh fried pan fish and ... a first for us...Catfish!

Saturday was bug catching day with the neighbor kids. I went hiking at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve afterwards.

I know my sequence of events are not in order. But I sure have had a busy and productive few days.

Today is adventure day at Awesome Creek. Since the last flash flood there is an area that was created that will be perfect for young children to play and splash in. No large boulders, just sand and small pebbles.

Which reminds me. I need to take a bucket to collect some small pebbles.