It feels like to me that Spring and Summer lasted two months collectively before we had a couple of weeks of beautiful Indian Summer and straight into gloomy, wet, and chilly Fall! But honestly, I am grateful for it all! What a wonderful area we live in to experience to much diversity in weather and seasons.
Woodchuck continues to do well after his shoulder surgery! He says some days are better than others, but he continues to do his at home therapy exercises every other day. My shoulder has yet to be figured out. Most are suspecting a pinched nerve, though I am still not letting go of the possibility of a tear somewhere. A spine and back x-ray was done and I was found to have some bulging and slipped discs, bone spurs, a tumor, and an infection somewhere. Physical therapy provides no relief and sometimes only makes it worse. They are only focusing on my neck, so I've started focusing on my back, especially the lower back and my anterior pelvic tilt. That has provided the most relief!
I started a new full time job in mid-August after we took our youngest back to college, and left that job a week ago. I promised myself that I would only put myself in places that felt good. While I stayed there longer than I should have, I got out before I had invested too much more time. I am grateful for the lessons and that job covered expenses for the first semester of our sons Senior year of college. I will continue to look for a second job while working my original part-time job at a resale shop. Leaving my full time job also made it possible to be with Woodchuck while he was on his most recent weeks vacation. Our week was CRAMMED full of projects, errands, and several medical appointments between the two of us. It was so nice to not feel the pressure of the job and to just be with him!
Projects at the land are picking back up, with snow in the forecast this coming week. Woodchuck has built a shooting range back drop of sorts (it's not done yet). Not where I would have focused the energy right now, but I wasn't going to stop him, lol, he deserves to do things of his own. I am hoping to also use it for knife throwing and shooting a bow and arrow, since I am not comfortable handling guns.
I worked on removing invasives from around the pear and river birch trees, then moved on to an already dead tree that was killed by multiflora rose and was surrounded by many other invasive plants at the base. The before and after.....
We will leave the tree for now! It can still be utilized by birds, insects, etc.
The weather was amazing for the week of our vacation and the time we spent working on the land. I even took the time to cut off all of the honeysuckle berries from the bush I cut down, just to keep me there outside longer and to prevent the seeds from being spread. I black bagged them as usual and picked up as many that fell to the ground that I could find.
We got all of the work lights hung in the barn!
And we started burning the pile of removed trees that had been sitting for a year! It didn't go as smoothly as it could have, but nobody was seriously hurt and at least we made some headway. We will continue to break it down into manageable piles and burn it little by little.
Yesterday, we took a road trip to Rochester, Indiana to a modular home building facility to see if that would be a more affordable way to build. It was a very interesting tour of the actual workshop, and a couple of the model homes! The first model home we walked through was very similar in floor plan to the one that we designed, even if the outside was very, very different. I think we could have tweaked materials to get the aesthetic on the outside we were looking for, but honestly, it was going to cost just as much, and most likely more, to go with the modular facility than to just go with our original design.
We have some other things to check into before zeroing in on the way to proceed. It's honestly getting harder and harder to leave the land when we are there, we are both looking forward to spending so much more time out there. We didn't even get to camp this year!
Woodchuck will be calling the forester this week to set up a day to meet with us at the land in November and walk the CRP forests to mark trees that we will be girdling to start thinning. The health of the second CRP continues to decline and trees are snapping in half. I am honestly really looking forward to learning more about this process and to see the positive changes it will bring, even if it will change the look of the forest as we know it and fell in love with. It is all for the betterment of it, and to let the native trees grow and thrive again. Once we have that plan down, we will spend this Winter girdling, as well as continuing to remove invasives from inside the forests. During our most recent walk there, I found a large patch of honeysuckle in the second forest that I will need his help with. If he doesn't want to help, I will break it down into manageable pieces for me to work on by myself. But it will get done.
I have a very good feeling about 2024 for us. I had already been saying it to Woodchuck the past month or so, and when I was walking out of the imaging department, the tech said, "It's going to be your year next year, Heather, make sure you celebrate every day." I told her that I would if she did too, because we all deserve it every day. I leave you now with some colors from the land 💛💛💛
