The Trees

So I know I mentioned that I'd write more about the trees.

Hey, Mom, I'm hoping you are getting all this for the scrap book, right?  :)

We had put our deposit down, and went to look at the house, and this HUGE tree had fallen in the yard. In this photo, Husband was saying, "What if it had hit the house?  What would we have done then?"

But it didn't hit the house.  It DID make us realize, though, that some of these trees are less than stable.  And one tree, the one in the deck, really needed to go.

Really close call!

By the time we'd closed on the house, the neighbors had kindly cleaned up all of the debris from this fallen tree.  (They need the firewood, anyway, because they use firewood for heat, every day.  I don't begrudge them the tree.  They've also been watching over the house for a while, so I guess it's payment.)

This tree, the one in the deck, was tricky to take out.  For one thing, it is surrounded by deck.  For another thing, it hovers over the closest neighbor's electric wires.  (They lose electric all the time, apparently, from branches down on wires.)  It was too big of a job for us to take on, so we paid to have it dropped.

And I do mean DROPPED.  I told the guys to feel free to take out that side of the deck.  It's rotted out anyway, and I didn't really like that side of the deck much.  The whole deck/porch thing has to be reconfigured.

You can see in this photo how close our one neighbor is.  I wasn't sure I'd like that, but they are a very nice family, and I actually feel a lot more secure knowing SOMEONE is around, especially when I'm up there by myself.  And he's been great, taking care of mowing our lawn until we get our tractor running.  Even so, that isn't really the side of the house I prefer to have the deck on.  I'll feel like I'm sitting outside staring at their house!

And today, Husband and Nick are up there chopping wood.  I'm jealous.  I won't get there until tomorrow.

And we don't have a wood stove yet.  Soon, though.  It's starting to get cool in the evenings.

What we DID get this weekend is a new sliding glass door in the kitchen.  Considering that the old one was boarded up, I figured it was a priority.  Now I have to replace one more window before winter.

And get a woodstove, and electric would be nice.  I think I'm prepared to give in on the water.  We don't really NEED water, and the pipes would just freeze again anyway.  Maybe in the spring we can get our plumbing fixed.

So I know probably no one is reading this and really interested in any of it, except me.  Well, Stevie, my nephew in the Marines, may like reading this one day - he is as excited as I am about the whole camp.  He had a chance to visit it just once before he went off to training at Parris Island.   And I think my family is very happy - right, Mom? - that we picked something generally near them.  I'm hoping that they come visit me.  The fact that it's an extremely rough dirt road to get in doesn't seem to bode well for visitors.  I hope I get some visitors, though!  We'll see.

Yeah, I know no one is really interested besides me.  But I am SOOOO happy, you have no idea.  This is my home now.  It really feels that way.

Of course, it's only been about a month :)  so we'll see what I say when the honeymoon is over!

I'll write more soon, after my visit there tomorrow!