Work day photos

To make up for the lack of pictures, after biking today we decided to go do some poses to show off our work.

I mentioned in an earlier blog about the first crocus of the year.  Figured I'd get a picture.  I must say that a crocus is very underwhelming... can't imagine planting enough of these to look like anything.

This is the crape myrtle that Ashley and I grew from a twig.  We are going to pour a cement step out the side of the house there.  Dennis is showing off one of the shovels.  The kids actually filled in some holes behind him while I planted this one.

This is one of the new blueberry bushes.  There was a blueberry bush last year but this winter the deer chewed it up.  I didn't want the kids stepping on the bulbs coming up in this area so I took a boring picture without kids.

This is the smallest of the 3 main branches off the slowing dying tree behind the kids.  This opens up a pine tree behind it to more light.

Shot of the same branch from the other side.  There are two other really small trees lying around too that I also cleared.

Dennis is really proud of this one and he should be.  He worked and fell hard to get there in.  To the right is a new blueberry bush that should mature in spring and right behind him is the chewed up one mentioned before that we transplanted here to see if it would make it.

Another good once Dennis helped with.  This is one of the trees Ashley and I grew from a twig.  Taken care here that Dennis doesn't get excited, lose balance and fall on the tree.

Sam helped me with this hard task.  This pine tree got overgrown with vines coming off other tree over taken by vines.  We cleared out everything effecting it and pulled off as many vines as we could.  You can see Sam and Amanda playing with the beach ball they found when picking up trash.  We are going to have a lot of brush/branches to burn.

The 3 youngest kids showing off their muscles.  Dennis would have tried to carry that log up to the house if I had let him.  This is a dead tree that finally fell this winter.  I don't know what kind of wood this thing is but it is hard as a rock.  I had to sharpen the chain 3 times just to get this thing into a dozen pieces and it isn't very big around.

Decided to take a detour to the tiny creek at the edge of our property.  It is overgrown with brush during the summer so he hadn't seen it before.  Dennis is demonstrating how he loses balance if he gets too excited.

Just cause... Dennis didn't want any more pictures of the water but insisted I take this picture.  That is actually our neighbors house.  Our house is actually well over the ridge behind the trees on the left of this picture.

Another tree Ashley and I grew from a twig.  At this point Dennis didn't want to pose with any small trees.

They all decided this little pine tree that the winds/ice destroyed that I had to cut down was worth posing in front of.  It will make for a few small logs in the fire but mostly nice fuel for the burn pile.

Lastly, the wood shed.  You'll note we are down to our last dry row... fortunately the weather looks like we won't need it.  We burned about 2-3x the shed full this year.  It's hard to tell from the picture but it slopes back pretty good.  The kids carry the wood into the lawn tractor/trailer parked about where I'm standing.  We'll take advantage of the next few months splitting the wood around the property and seeing how far we can get in filling it back up.

That's about it.  Dennis is doing great.  Mom made his favorite food tonight CHICKEN.  He ain't more than anyone else including me.  We did seem to find his limit in ice cream.  We try to have ice cream or some sort of dessert available every night for the kids who eat everything.  He certainly could use to gain 10lbs... and that cavity the dentist found, he brought that with him from Ukraine -- I need to schedule an appointment for him.  Though thinking back on it... all the candy we sent him in packages coupled with poor dental hygiene might have had something to do with it.

This evening riding bikes... Amanda was showing off how she can ride her bike full speed and pedaling hard down the driveway.  She's is going to really wreck bad one of these days... but she's so pleased with gma and gpa showing her how :)  Dennis was showing me how he can ride his trike with no hands.  That may not sound like anything but it's pretty impressive... when he left this summer for Ukraine he was still having trouble keeping the trike straight and tended to turn the big side-to-side as he pedaled.  Having enough strength to pedal and keep the trike going straight without the help of his hands is huge.  He's of course has gotten spinning around and riding down the driveway on the trike down too.  His running is doing a lot better too... once we get running down we will try him on Sam's old bike with training wheels.