Working Hard On Our Land...

We were working hard on our land this past week. It was a camo wearing, four wheeling, heavy equipment using and chain-sawing kind of week. I can honestly say I am quit efficient at four-wheeling and using a chainsaw now. Just like a true redneck woman!

I have officially claimed the four-wheeler as mine

Charlie took a vacation week from work and finally had a skid steer delivered. He won a weeks rental last fall in a United Way auction that CAT was hosting. Without having proper equipment, our`40 acres of land has become overrun and in need of some clearing and TLC. We also took the opportunity to clear a spot where we will eventually put up a little building. In order to do that a lot of trees came down and will be used in future campfires. We also cleared a lot of our trails so now Charlie can access most areas of our property with his Jeep if need be. There is still work to be done but we got a lot of the hard manual labor done!

All cleared and ready for some final grading

The beautiful oak tree towards the back of our property.  I just love this spot..all it needs is a tire swing and picnic table! All the piles to the side are  bush honeysuckle that had overgrown and taken over. Not anymore! Now we just have to burn all our brush piles. 

The final product after a week of grueling work. A nice gravel road for cars and any trailers that may need to be parked. The large dirt area towards the front of the picture is where our building will go.

Another angle 

The saving grace was truly the skid steer. It is an amazing piece of equipment and made the job so much easier. It knocked over trees, removed stumps,  and graded dirt so easily. Charlie did an amazing job running it. He literally jumped into the thing and looked liked a pro from the moment they delivered it. His ability to just figure things out amazes me and I am thankful for his mad skid-steering skills because our dream of having a really nice place to camp, hunt, get away from it all and just let the kids explore is becoming more of a reality every year!

Let the demolition begin

I can't imagine operating this thing

The kids also came out a few times and had fun with all the dirt mounds. I told Charlie he needed to have an area with just a pile of dirt because it was pure entertainment for the kiddos. They also thought riding the skid steer with daddy was awesome. They helped move dirt and take up a few stumps with him. I enjoyed taking them around on our newly cleared trails on the four wheeler. They love it out there!

A lot of people helped out this week and we couldn't have done it without them. The grandparents watched the kids countless number of times so I could help out. Charlies brother-in-law, Eric, came out numerous amounts of time and did some grueling work of helping cut down trees and haul away all the cut logs. And some fellow CAT co-workers also came out to help with skid-steering. We are so very thankful to you all!

Charles with Granny and Grandpa

Dziadek helping stake out the future building

Babcia tending to the burn pile with Zoe