Go!

 There's been a lot of red light, green light being played over the past 5 years. We have made so much headway on the land, my memory jogged after going through my computer to start clearing out pictures. That place was WILD when we bought it, nearly so thick with vegetation that you couldn't walk through it, definitely couldn't access certain spots at all, and you were covered in ticks. We have a lot to be proud of. Including that we got approved for the construction loan and are moving forward with the building process now! We meet via Zoom with the bank tomorrow, which happens to be Woodchucks birthday, to go over the next steps. In meantime, we carry on as we have been. (UPDATE: the bank called and had to reschedule. The meeting won't happen until next week.)

Checking trail cams. I am up to checking 7 at the land and 1 here at home. I don't know how I entered in to this contract of he goes to work and I do everything else, but here we are, lol. And look what I found!

We made it through another holiday. Easter. I hate holidays. Woodchuck worked, and I made cookies (lemon cookies with strawberry icing and Easter sprinkles. I got maybe four of them over the course of a few days, our son eating the majority of them. Maybe I'll make some for when my sister comes home for a visit next week! Dinner was great, and the ham was the best I think we've ever had! The eggs were bought from a friends local farm stand!

Spring is in full force now, no matter what the up and down temps say! All of the plants, both good and bad, are waking up and I get to see one of my favorite sights.....rain drops on leaves!

We trodded around the damp yard to clean out the greenhouse and shed, and loaded up the truck to take those things for storage at the land.

I won this lot at a local auction and am looking forward to sprucing them up and using them!

I am not thrilled with using the shipping the container as storage though. It's fantastic as far as the amount of space, but the condensation builds up and water drips from the ceiling down the whole length of it, and it stinks inside like gasoline and mustiness.

I also took a wreath back that I had made at the land and had out front of our home. Probably a good thing to return it to the forest, since it had lots and lots of tiny insect holes from having it at our house.

The pond is super full, but the flooding on the other side of it has started to go down.

We took a quick walk and the same Callery Pear tree is on the neighbors land. It will probably never get cut down, and now that I cut one down on our watershed not far from this, I will continue to keep an eye open.

We had to spend some time here at home working on the tree line that runs the length of our side yard and driveway. The railroad owns it, but does not maintain it and trees are breaking and nearly hitting our cars. There's also a lot of invasives, like honeysuckle and Tree of Heaven, in there that I have been trying to remove for over 5 years now. 

Before.

During. Woodchuck cutting the larger, broken trees with his gas powered chainsaw.

We will be renting a dumpster once our tax return comes in, so we can start disposing of things around the house and property, like this fence panel that I have been asking for years to remove. The bottom has bird nest fungi, one of my favorites!

A handful of hours later, and only about halfway cleaned up. A little bit at a time though, especially since we have been sick and really shouldn't be doing this right now.

A couple of days later, I was in town and ran to the grocery store after physical therapy. As I was loading my car up in the driver side back seat, I noticed my tire. I was LITERALLY right next to the tire place, but I had frozen food in the car and it was a warmer day than usual. I also know Woodchuck, he would want to see that tire to make sure that it was indeed split. In hindsight, I should have taken the loss on the frozen stuff, because I could see the dry rot for myself, but I didn't do that. I drove the 20 minutes home, unloaded, he looked at the tire--and yes, indeed, it was split--, called the tire place, and we drove the 20 minutes back to town to sit there for 2 hours waiting to spend $500+ on two tires. 

I am sure that every time they put that car up on the lift, they think I am a terrible driver! The rims are all scuffed up, the whole underside is ripped apart, but I bought the car that way! 😂 And hear me out. I know now that Woodchuck does not want anything to do with car maintenance, repairs, upkeep, other than oil changes. He doesn't want to spend the money, he doesn't want to spend the time. BUT. I had my car in to the same tire place FOUR times since late February of this year. My smooth ride went to a wobbly mess. Woodchuck would some days say he felt it and to get it in, and other days say he couldn't feel it and it was fine. He had me take it in for an alignment, a rotation, and I took it in twice for a balance. Yet, nobody saw the dry rot. He said that is not what they are looking for when they do those services, they are looking at the treads. I mean. I guess I don't get that since I wasn't a car mechanic of any sort like he was, and their face was closer to this spot on the tire while they were messing with them all of those previous times than mine was while loading groceries. 🤔Anyhoot, it's done now.

I've finished another project! This one was something I made years ago, and when something doesn't sell for that long, I revamp it. I added two colors of glass beads to it. Don't know what a medicine wheel is? See my previous post for an explanation.

On our most recent trip back to the land, Woodchuck changed the oil in the truck, and I went into the forest to pull garlic mustard, honeysuckle, and baby pine trees. It must be baby season for spiders too, unless these are just young ones, or maybe a small male? Wolf spiders. 

Not a bad haul for someone recovering from hip surgery and working alone. I felt pretty good too, no tightness or pain.

We are slowly, so very slowly fencing of the tree saplings. Plastic mesh deer fencing is a pain in the ASS, especially if there is the slightest breeze. That is part of why we are only doing a few at a time, lol.

Stinging nettle season!

Elderberry!

We took a moment to sit on our bench.

And then I picked a handful of garlic mustard to try and eat at home with dinner.

All washed up, dried, and ready to cook. I cooked it, tried one piece, spit it out and threw the rest away. It was too bitter for me! I will continue to pull it and bag it up.

This past weekend, Woodchuck and I participated in the indoor rummage sale at the Expo Center where I used to work. It was so nice to have his help!!! I set everything up the day before by myself, but it was nice having him there to help tear down and carry stuff to the car....and of course to have his company all day! We did well, and got to see some familiar faces. It really was a fantastic day overall! 

A couple of days ago, we celebrated his 65th birthday! It was a tough day for him emotionally, so I tried to make it light and fun. I made him a cake, which I found out is now a no-no to surprise him with a cake. I have to always ask now what he wants. We headed to New Buffalo for some resale shopping (nothing to be found), metaphysical store hopping (nothing to be found), a stop at a new-ish business where they make their own breads, serve coffee, have produce growing on-sight (they were closed), went to lunch at The Stray Dog, which has rave reviews (we weren't impressed, especially for the price), and since we were right at the lake we wanted to take a walk (it was raining and with us recovering from some chest stuff, we didn't think it would be smart to get drenched and chilled). So we came back to Indiana and stopped at the grocery store, then my friends workplace to get some empty boxes, the electronics recycling site, library and post office, and then home. I could really get used to him having two days a week off and having it be like it used to be when we could do day dates more consistently.

He used the free time to start calling contractors and getting bids. We also found out that our son has found an apartment and will be moving out in early June! So the house is filling up with packed boxes from us all, and I am purging decades of stuff faster than ever before. It fills amazing to be letting go of what has been weighting down my spaces, and to make it to where I won't be spending as much time managing STUFF, but having experiences, freedom, and flow. )O( 💜