18 / 52 weeks

52 weeks of daily life in pictures: trials and celebrations,
the extraordinary and mundane -- 
whatever is unique to the week. 
Join me if you like.

Spring cleaning hit, and it's been a mighty combination of assigned chores and uncommon detailed duties to tend to. 

With such a large family library, there comes a time when one of those tasks is to dust off the tops and crevices of took pages. 

I have so many small framed photos sprinkled about the stacks, often performing this duty sends me into a spiral orbit of reminiscing, not such a bad thing either mind you. 

And then there's the long, lingering JOB of clearing the forest, still in progress all last week!

There is much to do, hoping to be done before week's end before the mosquitoes become their usual "large enough to suck your entire body of blood"... unless of course, the black biting flies get your first!

Here lies a very large pile of my nicknamed "loonie and twonie" sized trees, sprouting and growing in such abundance, the denseness of the forest becomes all too shady, and the trees attempting to grow to larger heights end up being suffocated and grow strange because of lack of sun (photosynthesis).  

Our chain saw helper had an issue when he was forgetful about lubricating his father's chain on the equipment, and an issue arose because of it.

Off to the rescue, I was able to rent a self-lubricating chain saw from the rental store. None of us could tell you for sure just how many trees were removed from the thickening of the forest, a few hundred is a wild but likely accurate estimate. 

 

With an abundance of skies like the one above, the outdoors beckoned us to come and work often during our days. 

In two weeks, the garbageman can pick up the biyearly allowable bags of leaves, so raking the build up of leaves around the end of the forest was a good thing, likely eliminating many nests of mosquitoes awaiting there for hatching.

Yearning for spring time color, the fire bush plants around the property are the ONLY color we see at this present time! 

This is typical of what we have at this moment, a few buds attempting to burst wide open are beginning to show themselves though.

Oh, but we must maintain a positive and happy attitude about this later spring spectacle, thankful for all new growth wherever it may be.

Our blue spruce we had moved last year is doing very well, showing a lovely new growth as a bonus this week. 

Aside from the usual tools of such a trade (forest clearing), I don't have a photo to share as proof of my sometimes wild and crazy nature, but I ended up renting (and having delivered) a "bush hog", a self driven (HA!) piece of (incredibly heavy!) machinery used to chomp up the forest flooring.

With great difficulty, I was able to remove many prickle bushes, but soon realized it would be a tough duty in my day when the wheels often sunk and I was stuck! 

Pulling. Yanking. Wiping my brow. 

That was one of the toughest things I've ever done! Two hours into the job, that was it for me....and that was all I was able to accomplish due to dips and valleys plus moisture on the ground to sink to depths of great difficulty for getting this thing to cooperate with me.  It also took me the rest of the day to recover from this mammoth duty! My arms reminded me of it all the next day, just to make sure no doubt that I remembered using this machine from the day before.

On we go then, only a few more days to remove the debris, piles of trees branches and other materials, and that's it! It will be back to other garden and grassy chores only outdoors, and viewing sunsets aplenty. 

Head on over to Barbara's to check out the invitation to join the

52 week photography link-up party.