Today was the second day of tree felling.  Here is the huge spruce between our house and the trailer.

And here are the three birch trees by the driveway.

The team arrived at 6:30 in the morning and started with the spruce.

 

 

 

 

Then the attention went to the birches in front.

This is what the large birch liked inside.  All three birch were rotten inside

There was a nail in the large birch but also this.  Apparently the previous owner had put a plant hanger up, but over the years the tree had overgrown it until it was barely visible.  This could have been devastating if they had hit it with a chain saw.

The dogs had been kept in the house all morning since the front gate onto our busy road was open through this whole process plus there were trees falling down.  But I figured their bladders were bursting so I took them out to the back forty (actually 4).  Here is the view now of our farmhouse without the spruce trees  It looks weird.

I found some foxglove in bloom.  In the past we had a lot of these in the back, but I could only find this clump.  I am not sure why.

I also noticed this stump with large fungi growing on it.

When we returned from our walk they were finishing the birches.  Tom’s father had come over to watch the “logging show” as Tom put it.  Here they are on the road watching the final clearing.

The company we used was Primal Tree Service, and they were amazing.  They cleared up all of the debris, and all we had left are chips and wood rounds.  Safety seemed to be quite important.  We would highly recommend them.  And it turns out that the owner is an ex-patient of mine so that made me feel proud.

Here is the view from the dining room now as I ate lunch.  You can see the fields across the street now and the damaged produce stand is quite visible.

Here is the view from our back porch.  The trailer is quite visible.  It is obvious that I need to pressure wash it soon.  But you can see the fields and the trees out back now.

Now that the birch trees are down we can focus on repairing the produce stand.  Here it is when Tom first built it.

And here it is just before the trees came down.  You can see how much the rhody as well as other things grew.  We are using the ice chest to sell our eggs now, but it is not the same.  Hopefully the stand will go up quickly and will be better than ever.  Plus the free library will be back in business.

In other news, on Saturday Tom’s son came for an unexpected visit.  I roped him into help moving the dead pellet stove out of our house.  Then I proceeded to remove the dilapidated mantle underneath.  What we found is the wood floor the color from when we bought the house. There was a Pay ‘n Pak sticker on part of it.  But we found remnants of an old wall we did not know about.

This means that the decorative accents in the living/dining room

and between kitchen and the dining rom are from the 1970s and not earlier.  They may have even come from Pay ‘n Pak.  These actually helped endear me to this house when we bought it.

Tom spread the chips around this afternoon.  There is a risk that they could combust like wet hay otherwise.  There was a funny moment.  He was bringing the tractor back through the gate from the pasture.  He was petting his beagle and then asked her to move away from the gate.  Instead she immediately ran through the gate and went crazy.  He had to chase her down.  I wish I had taken pictures because it was so funny.  It was a classic beagle move.  Tom was so mad, but I had to remind him that he wanted a beagle.

So that is the exciting news from Schoonover Farm.  The next step is splitting all of the wood into fire wood.  We will have a lot.