Summer work project on our future home site

A couple of weekends ago, I finally convinced Rick to head up to the dry farm and work on our future home site. Last summer's project was to plant three apple trees, and this summer I wanted to cut out all of the dead oak trees to allow the ones that are alive go grow bigger and more full. Rick was less than excited for my little project, but I keep telling him that in 10 years when we finally build a house there, we will be so happy that we put the work in now to make our yard beautiful! The first thing we saw when we got up there were three dead apple trees! I AM SO MAD AT MYSELF! We didn't water our trees all summer, mostly because we didn't think about it, but also because I just thought they were established enough that I didn't need to keep watering them. Boy was I wrong. One tree was totally dead, the other two were very, VERY near death. We watered them anyway in hopes that we could revive them.

Rick got going right away with the chainsaw and worked for an hour straight cutting down dead trees and cutting dead branches out of living trees. It was a lot of work because about half of the trees there are dead! The boys and I were in charge of piling up all of the dead wood to be cut for firewood. Luke worked really hard finding all of branches he could and making a huge pile. Noah was pretty scared of the loud chainsaw so he tried to stay away from it. He also took a spill and cut his hand on a stick, so he wasn't too much help on our family work project. I felt like we did a lot of cutting and piling, but there is still a lot to do. We aren't finished with all that needs to be done, but I guess we have a few more years to work on it!

Of course I forgot to take my camera so these pictures were taken with Rick's phone, thus the less than stellar quality.My attempt to revive the apple trees by hauling buckets of water from the creek.

Noah helping water the dead apple trees.

Luke working on his big pile of branches.

Rick showing off his chainsaw skills.