Making a West Wall

First of all I have to say... the weather has been so perfect here I've been out doing important things instead of blogging.

Logs... Logs and more Logs... There were so many Poplar Trees I had them cut up into two foot lengths and stacked, almost like you would fire wood but in this case I created the west wall of my pasture.

I used some of the trees as post but also used found T-post to keep my wall nice and clean. While my picture is NOT a good one it gives you an idea of what it looks like until I can show you the entire pasture giving it a better perspective.

This is a better close up picture of the entry wall I had created to keep the pasture seperated from what will be the private drive area to the house. Also note all the wood shavings... the sawdust and chipping of brush I've used it to start making a planting bed and keep weeds down in this little area till I can give it some tender loving care.

Brush, Fencing, and LOTS of work.

While this is ONLY a picture of the property without the fencing it is amazing how well everything is starting to come together. Having all this open space is what allows me to vision the rest of the project. My next issues are getting the fencing up, creating a platform/level site for the barn, then pasture seeds. WE shall see how it goes. While working on the list above I also have to start planning on how to use the space more wisely for food and being self supportive. First thing on my list is Apples. An easy item to have that will take years before a tree produces anything so... Off to purchase apple trees wish me luck.

Clearing out a pasture

After clearing out a spot about an acer and a half; logs, logs, and more logs from trees we found and trees we cut. The issue here is, what to do with all the wood. The trees we found were of such an asset one can't put a cost on them. We found well over 20 full grown trees of Locus. IF you are not clear of what a Locus is... incredibly ... resistant to insects and ROT a treasure found. I quickly set out to have them cut to 10ft lengths and put into the ground for my fencing. I got well over 25 good fence post larger than a telephone post. What I had left I offered to the community and only one family wanted to make the effort to come get them. This family loaded a long bed truck full and came back for more NOT even making a dent in the supply of wood.

The Locus... well this turned out to be another matter. No one wanted it, no lumber yard would come and get it, because of my location on the mountain. The cost of shipping it to a lumber yard then having it brought back would have taken all the finances I had alloted to my task at hand. So instead I had it cut into two foot lengths and stacked amoung the trees to create my west side wall for the horse pasture. While this will NOT last forever it is beautiful from the road and allows privacy for our trails on the private area of the property.

While everyone talks about a simpler life (and this is after all my goal), but a simpler life is NOT one that is EASIER. Don't kid yourself and think anything simple is easy! It sounds that way due to the english language but simple is acutaly much harder. I have no machinery I can only pay or barter for work done. Stumps, stumps, and more stumps are my next issue.