I am just now recovering from the weekend, and no, I did not spend it partying until the wee hours of the morning. :) When we woke up Saturday morning, we knew we had two things on the agenda: 1) Deliver a Halloween costume to Sikeston (and collect $10), and 2) Meet with another contractor about the basement. Jas said if we accomplished both those things before lunch, we could go down to the building site after lunch and clean out some brush. Normally I would have shuddered at the thought, but we both knew it would feel good to get out there and accomplish something. So I agreed, and after lunch we headed down there. We gathered up some hoes and rakes and gloves, and set to work.
There were quite a few medium-size trees and a TON of brush, weeds, old fence row, etc. that needed to be cleared out. And it was going to take the two of us FOREVER.
But then Jason's sister Jill came down. And the three of us set to work on the brush and the first of the trees. Jason got the chainsaw, and after a few hours we had cleared the brush between our property markers.
But Jason's parents really wanted the rest of the brush and trees gone, too, (that were on their property) so we kept going. And going. And going. Just like the Energizer bunny. Eventually, after blisters began forming between thumbs and forefingers, Jas got the tractor and bush hog and began clearing the ditch.
Jill and I were very appreciative, because it meant less hoeing and raking. But only slightly less.
By the time we got to the big trees at the end, we were joined by Jason's brother Jeremy, his cousin Travis, his uncle Andy, and his dad. Jeremy and Jas cut the trees down with the chainsaws, and Travis dragged them to the brush pile with the tractor. Jill and I dragged off all the rest of the brush and limbs.
We ended up with a massive brush pile (much larger than the one in the above photo), but by that time it was getting dark and I didn't have the camera out. (BTW, see that chunk of tree leaning against the truck? That's our new mailbox post!)
We spent the rest of the evening (until about 9:30) burning the brush pile.
There is NO way we could have accomplished all this by ourselves -- the task was enormous! So we give a monstrous THANK YOU first of all to Jill, who stuck with us the whole day, and even joined us again on Sunday to finish up. We also thank Jeremy (especially since he ended up with poison ivy), Travis, Andy, and Vernon. And Susie, for keeping an eye on all the kids and fixing us dinner. We couldn't have done it without all of you!
Stay tuned for part two -- Sunday! :)
