Clearing the Hiking Path... Again.

OK. So, apparently, if you don't keep at the whole "Property Maintenance" thing, plants will try their best to take over whatever project you've started.... Ours was the hiking trail through the woods. But, I digress...

With the summer heat, it was near impossible to spend more than an hour outside... even less if there was heavy labor involved. Since clearing a path by hand involves heavy labor, it didn't get done this summer, though we did manage to cut down some of the trees in the way of our desired trail. Mind you, we are doing all this by hand... that is to say, with hand held saws, hatchets and an ax. Like I said, LOTS of labor involved. Cutting these things out took much more effort than expected and after nearly passing out from the heat a time or 2, we did manage to get the path cleared... that is, of the heavy debris.

While we focused our efforts on the BIG things, the little things fell by the wayside... things like making sure the brush didn't grow over the path too much... or clearing out debris from the few rain storms we DID get... so, we decided to hike the trail a couple weeks ago to take stock of the work ahead. Our cat, KC (short for Kitty Cat), who loves to go on our hiking adventures through the woods, came with us. Wearing our Camelbacks and armed with a machete, hatchet and a pistol, we headed out. Why a pitsol? You'll see...

Here are some of the pictures from that excursion:

Looked like rain might come. It sprinkled. Nothing more.

Beginning the trail... Lots of vines had grown and some new trees popped up, but we were able to clear most of it by hand this time.

This is the pond by the house. It's VERY low. The drainage pipe is sticking out on the left and the pond floor is a deep green from all the little plants growing on the exposed lush ground!

KC, the adventurer!

Hubby was clearing the path with his machete while I, er... um... documented the event! LOL!

Did I mention that a LOT of vines grew over the summer?

This is why we carry a pistol when we're out here. I'm glad it's only the shed skin! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for the former inhabitant, though!

Once we did get it cleared out, the vines, along with the wood we'd cut, made an excellent bonfire! YAY wood ash for the garden!!! Here's some pics for all you Pyromaniacs out there:

Keep in mind that the flames were taller that our house by this point.

The little rain we DID get didn't even make a dent in the fire... We watched the flames until the mosquitoes got too thick to enjoy it. Hubby used the hose to back the pyre down to something that would safely burn itself out. Ah, what we do to entertain ourselves!