The brush is gone!

Ok, so not entirely. In fact, we’ve probably only worked on five acres or less; I just wanted to throw a little Johnny Nash in there. The point is: once we started clearing the decades worth of underbrush, we could actually see what it all looked like.

Some areas were far worse than others, and I think we’ve already tackled some of the worst we have. In the several areas we started with, we could only walk a couple feet before having to change course to go around a massive bramble or briar several feet wide by sometimes more than 6 feet tall. It was all intertwined with tree branches, vines, suckers, or another identical clump, several feet away. We really couldn’t see past what was literally right in front of us.

The first several times out to the property, we only had two pairs of pruning shears and determination. We slowly progressed to a hedge trimmer, hand saws, and telescoping loppers. Eventually, we graduated to chainsaws and a brush saw.

Important note here: having family volunteers to help with labor is invaluable. We were able to safely spend quality time with family during the pandemic, enjoy the outdoors, and wear out our cooped-up eight year old, all while moving closer to our dream. Our families love being a part of it too. Huge shoutout to those who have helped us so much along the way!

While clearing the underbrush from around that oak, we found one of its massive limbs down, so we cut that into moveable sections.

The log stool pictured above is just one small piece of that massive limb. Our son uses it as his sitting stool so he doesn’t have to unpack and repack a camp chair. “Work smarter, not harder,” I always tell him.

And so it went, everywhere we moved. We’d pick a spot and continue out from there. Clear the brush, find downed trees and limbs, clear that, and finish off the brush. We stacked the wood and burned through it when it got cold.

We learned pretty quickly that it was a whole lot more efficient to make and use our piles when we sorted the brush and wood by size.

We tried to take before and after photos, but they really just didn’t do it justice. The sheer volume of brush was unbelievable.

The best frame of reference we have is where the guys found the fire ring. They thought they saw something metal, so they started to work their way toward it, getting stuck with thorns the entire way. Think: trying to get a dryer sheet off of Velcro; it’s like that.

They made it to the area and then had to try to figure out what it was and how to (and if they even could) get it out of there.

Their solution: bring me, because I’d know what to do.

By the time I got out there, things had started greening up and leafing out. We decided to just start cutting through the brush to clear around and inside it. The brush in the area was nearly 3 feet tall and entirely thorns.

Once we got it across the ravine, we weren’t able to tell which direction to go with it to get back to the spot on the top of the hill where we had been working. We had to go around to our clearing at the top and work our way down to find the ring and make a path connecting the two.

Over the course of the next year, we continued to clear further out in all directions from our original spot until we reached a natural stopping point, like a crest or a ravine. We then changed course and decided to take on the area around the pond, which led us to the worst area yet: where the ring had initially been discovered.

In that year, so many things came full circle.

This work will continue, probably forever. Seeing the ground that lies beneath is like revealing a gift beneath its wrapping paper. As soon as we complete an area, we forget what it was even like before we started. Eternal amazement, how spectacular.

Honorable mention: