When we first bought the property, we knew a logging road could be accessed but it was blocked by a fallen tree. After removing that tree, here are a couple of pictures of what will someday be our driveway:

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After using chainsaws, a pole saw, and weedeaters to clear the path more, it became much more accessible. However, the initial hill was very steep, and the next stretch was slanted down while the car was driving along, making wet or snowy conditions dangerous. Here are the before and after views from this most recent project. Note that the after shots were all taken in wet conditions so the new driveway needs to dry out before we can spread any more rock, but you can see we put down some 3″ base rock on that first hill. So first, here is the view of the driveway from the county road:

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Before and after of the next stretch, looking back towards that first hill:

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Before and after of the first corner, where the driveway makes the first corner:

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Before and after of the stretch of driveway after the first corner:

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And finally, the before and after shot of the last stretch of driveway, leading up to the house site:

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We had rented an excavator but it wasn’t all machine all day long. Here are some other shots from our week of work:

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Amidst all the social distancing and reduced hours at work, my boss asked all of the employees to take a week’s vacation if we hadn’t yet already. I had cancelled a week’s vacation in March due to the pandemic, so Darren and I both took this past week off to work on the property. We had been putting money away for our property work, and decided to rent a mini-excavator to work on the driveway and knock out a bunch of little projects. The driveway was the project we wanted to focus on the most, but unfortunately it rained half way into our week so we had to deal with water, mud and very sketchy conditions. That gave us time to get to those other projects, though — we covered up the water lines, smoothed out where the electric lines were installed last fall, and smoothed out a hill and some raised areas on the SE corner that we recently cleared. Luckily by the end of the week, the mud had dried enough that Darren was able to get to the driveway again — we had 30 tons of rock to spread and needed that machine to do it! It was a whirlwind week, and here are a few pictures to give you a brief glimpse of our efforts:

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Finally, after 10 months of property ownership, we have the road frontage of our property cleared along one side anyway! And half of the other side (we’ll get the rest another time). We cleared all the way to the southeast a month or so ago, and then started heading north along the road. Last weekend we made a big dent in clearing dead trees and saplings, so on Saturday, even after waking to very chilly temps, we packed all our gear, a lunch, and headed out. We had 2 burn piles to light, and more dead trees to cut down, and then we did some weed-eating. We cleared to within 10 feet of the property line — just beyond that is a neighbor’s house and we’ll leave the rest as a natural fence. The second well is in this area too, so now it’s visible and easily accessible.

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Spring, plus rain, plus warm temps, plus sun = green fast growing grass! We took a mid-week trip to Brown Hill Road to do a quick mowing job and to clean up a bit. Our daughter joined us to run the mower, so I cleaned up some left behind bark where we’d dragged trees off the hill, and Darren ran the weed-eater. I also found a black frog under the bark — pretty cool looking! We also discovered that our transplanted tree is finally sprouting leaves!

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May 1st — our first overnight on the property! It was terrific weather — cool at night, sunny all day on Friday, and expected to be warm on Saturday. The blue sky in the morning was stunning.

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Our current project is the remaining road frontage. We left about 1/3rd of the section of our property along the road yet to be cleared and we are tackling it now. There’s a power line that runs across that section, and we think they have sprayed the trees to keep them from growing up to the lines. However, a lot of the smaller trees are dead or dying so we’ll need to cut them down. Darren cleared the section where a trailer may have sat at one time, and we have 2 large burn piles ready for the next time. I was surprised that we didn’t find too much trash — one old car seat, and a pile of concrete debris — that was it! It must have been a long time ago that that area was occupied. The second well is nearby, too, so we’ll have to mark that in some way so we can easily find it in the future. And near the road is the last of the strip of land where the water lines were dropped in and not very well covered up. We’ll have to smooth that out as well. Lots to do!

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Last weekend we found another morel, had a great night by the fire, found out our dog isn’t crazy about cool spring days, and burned up more stumps and debris. I also mowed the top clearing, and our oldest son started working on a vehicular trail from the top clearing to the south ravine area. Right now, we can only access that on foot or by using someone else’s property. It’ll be nice having an easier access to that part of our woods.

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Another slightly wet start to the weekend, so we knew heading to Brown Hill Road that we’d not be able to get up the hill easily. We couldn’t decided what to have as our project for the day, but settled on finally getting the SE corner finished. It will need leveling at some point when we either buy a tractor or rent one, but until then, it is done! We burned off the large brush pile we’d gathered, and raked all the cleared area, and trimmed the overhanging trees. I even convinced Darren to cut down 3 dead trees that were just leaning against other trees. Most of those were burned up as well, but a few logs are being kept to cut into firewood. I also was shocked to be walking back to the burn pile at one point during the day and almost literally stepping on some morels that were growing in our cleared area! I always thought those grew in the woods only, but they were coming up from a small hill in the area we’d cleared last fall. In fact, they had to be recent because I had just mowed last weekend! I am ready to go mushroom hunting now! We brought 4 morels home that we just stumbled across, surely there must be more!!!

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This was a very chilly weekend in April — it might be the normal temperature, but we hit 83° on Wednesday so the 48° I saw today felt very cold! However, it was a day off for us, so we gassed up the mower, loaded up the equipment, and headed to Brown Hill Road. We mowed all the acreage that we had cleared last summer and fall — weeds were starting to come up quickly and we want to keep that area nice. I put some before and after pics below, but the camera just doesn’t do the before pics justice — the weeds were well over a foot tall in spots! We then started working on clearing the road frontage to the north. We cut out a huge briar patch, cut down several dead sumac trees, and piled it all up into a huge burn pile. Once the wind dies down, we’ll have lots of burning to do! While we were clearing the briars, though, I found a visitor — a turtle! It might be the same one we dug out of the briars closer to the camper last summer, who knows! He stayed in his shell awhile, but then I caught him on the move — heading right for the burn pile. So I carefully picked him up and took him across the road to the creekbed. I left him on a flat area where he can get water and find a new hole for himself.

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Also, a neighbor last fall told us that there was another flat section just up the road that used to have a trailer on it. We hadn’t seen evidence of that yet, but while walking along the road last weekend, we did see a flat area that didn’t look exactly natural — it looked like it had been flattened on purpose. So we walked up to it, and indeed, there is evidence that something used to sit there. The flat area is clear of trees so far, but it is level in a way that nature doesn’t do! There also is a bit of trash that we’ll have to pick up, but if there ever was a trailer there, it was taken away properly. It wasn’t burned out or left to rot. It’s very pretty when you stand there and look at the road, too. Maybe we’ll take advantage and put a swing or something there someday. A well house perhaps, since the 2nd well is nearby? The pictures below again don’t capture this area well which is too bad. I’m just glad we didn’t have another mess to clean up.

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Last fall, when we were clearing the road frontage along Brown Hill Road, we reached a section of the property where we just knew we couldn’t continue. It was totally covered in briars, it was a hillside where something had been burned, left to rot and was difficult to navigate. We decided to leave it alone, and wait for the winter to kill off the tall grasses and briars so we could see the land to clear. Today was the day we finally got back to that southeast corner! I knew we’d eventually get there — it’s the first thing you see when you travel along the road to get to our property and really needs to look good! But today was gray, wet and a little chilly, so getting up the hill was going to be harder, so we opted to stay down on the road level and hit that corner. We grabbed weed-eaters, chainsaws, a pole saw, and a rake and we tackled that corner. We piled up wood, briars, vines and all sorts of debris into a huge pile to burn off later. We cleared the fence row, we freed 3 trees of vines and briars around them, and we raked. It is not my favorite point on the land, but I am hoping it will dry up a little bit more, get some grass growing, and look so much better.

Our southeast corner is the fence corner — and now it is finally visible!

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