giving back to the land

While in our keeping, we desire to be good stewards of these few ridge top acres. As we've cleared dead trees and shrubs and pruned those that were neglected, we've put the non thorny, non weedy bits aside to be shredded for much needed mulch. Here are two views of the newly sorted and nicely stacked piles ready for tossing into "the machine." This was a job Barb and I tackled while she was here earlier this month. Thanks, Barb!

There was an old chipper/shredder left in the garage here when we took ownership of the place, but the most reliable small machine repairman in town said there were no longer parts available to make it safely useable. And it would not have been able to handle the larger sized branches.

photo taken by Matthias the day we first viewed the property

We decided to rent a machine from the True Value in town and have it brought out here and run by Dave, our "plowman." Just this past Friday, Dave retired from True Value after 40 years. He is truly the go to guy for how tos.
Yesterday, while Jerome was still here, Dave hauled it out and between the two of them they made short work of the job. The fellas were delighted to work together, to get to know each other better, to make a neat job of it all.

Here the job is nearly done. That  pile doesn't look very large, but it is lovely, fragrant mulch which will be a joy to use around all the trees in the new orchard, and in the flower bed along the driveway.

Oh, and there's Casey, a sweet lab who loves to keep Dave company on his plowing, mowing, shredding, brush hogging, every outside kind of job adventures.
When the fellas finished they came in for coffee and a sweet.  While we were at the table, a doe ran into the yard and directly to the spot where I saw a small fawn behind our orchard on Sunday. She must have been waiting for the noisy monster machine to quit before she braved coming across the road. All in all, a pretty good morning.