I was awakened this morning by the sound of heavy machinery just beyond the back yard. The bedroom wall is mostly glass, which magnifies the sound, so it was like I had a bulldozer or something in the bedroom with me. Vrooomroooomrrrrrooooom screech crash wrooooom vroooom, meep meep meep meep (backing up), vroooommmmm creeeeeeecrash vroooooommmm meep meep .... I ignored it as long as I could, but, well, it got me up in time to watch Sunday Morning, which I love, and Face the Nation. So it's ok, I guess.
A young couple, newlyweds I suspect, have bought the lot down the hill from the back yard, and it's amazing how hard the young man has been working. It's about ten acres of woods and pond, with an old barn down by the road. I met the couple last spring, when they stopped by to check on where my lot line was, and to ask my preference on keeping or cutting the trees just below my lot line. (My response was that as it is, the trees act as a windbreak, which is good, but if they remove the trees, I get back the summer 40-mile view, so either way works for me.)
The lot was very overgrown. Huge trees, brambles, undergrowth. Me, if I wanted to build a house, I'd probably pick the spot for the house, clear just enough around to build the house, then gradually expand outward. Not this kid. He has worked every weekend for the past year, and it looks beautiful! He has uncovered some big old weeping willows, some dogwoods, apple trees, and birches that he's keeping. He has cleared out the brush and volunteer trees, and is grading most of it now. The lower part even has some nice grass started, and it has already been mowed at least twice. I don't know how far up the hill toward my yard he will be clearing, it gets awfully steep toward the top, but I think I won't mind looking down on his yard.
The one "ouch" is that in the beginning, he was burning the brush in piles, and he'd go home at the end of the day, leaving huge burning piles. It worried me a bit. One of his piles was directly under a tree next to the barn, and the flames and sparks were shooting up. Somebody (not me) called the fire department, and after the third occasion that the FD had to come and put a fire out, there was no more burning. I don't know what he's been doing with the brush since, there'd have been so much of it, but there has been no more burning.
The kid may not learn quickly (the fires), but he sure is a hard worker.
I hope nobody buys the woods next door (maybe 20+ acres), and starts clearing it. Where will the groundhogs and deer and rabbits and foxes go then? I know of at least twice that people have considered buying it in the past 10 years, but the lot is landlocked. The only access from the road is a narrow strip, where you'd have to put the driveway, and that strip goes straight up, very steeply. Nobody familiar with the local winters could want it. However, since 9/11 we've been getting a lot of NYC folks moving up here, and I've seen a few new mini-mansions with 40 degree driveways, so who knows. Those fools heavily salt the impossible driveways, and too much of that is going to affect the wells - but nobody wants to hear about that until it's too late, (and until after "I've got mine") so....
Well, I'm going to have to go down and see what the kid did this morning.
~~ Silk
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