Collateral Damage, Sick As A Dog & Great Visit

For all the folks wondering what is happening with our newly acquired property and self imposed work at this neglected piece of wilderness, read on.

Not shy of work we thought it would be an easy task to clean this land. Boy, did we have some surprises while undertaking the job. To start off, I thought it would be best by starting to get rid of the weeds such as 4-foot long thistles and such.  Some pulled out easily, others I had to cut off. 
Along the hydro pole there were many of those weeds and tall grass surrounding it. Benno asked me to quickly clear that area. What we didn’t know was that the weeds and grass covered a pile of boulders, old asphalt, broken concrete slabs and dirt, three feet high hidden underneath around the hydro pole. We want the hydro pole free of debris because a lot surveyor stake is right at the pole according to the plan. In fact, it was several wheelbarrows full of dirt, one trailer load of stones and two days of hard work to clear this. But these were not the only rocks we discovered. Buried underneath and around the many potted trees, which had all rooted deeply by now, were more of those stones and other things like a pile of metal pieces used in roofing that where discarded a long time ago. 

Once we had that chore completed and a path cleared, Benno worked around the two discarded trailers with the old hardtop piled on. There were some old tarps, old pallets and other stuff laying next to them which he removed and then pulled the trailers out in front of the rest of the junk vehicles sitting there. Hopefully all those will disappear sometime soon. I hope!

With the help of our neighbours, Teresa and Dave, and their large utility trailer in addition to our trailer, we made several trips to the Town's Leaf & Yard Depot site to deposit tree branches, logs, roots and grass cuttings with weeds.  One full trailer load of firewood went to a neighboring fire pit.  

Benno’s newly acquired Stihl saw got a real workout. In fact we bought an additional new saw chain and had both already sharpened. We wanted the roots out together with the smaller trees and to do that, Benno used a high test choke chain with a hook on the bottom of the tree trunks and an attached tow strap with a shackle fastened to the hitch of the pickup truck.  Benno then gave it a good yank with the truck and in most cases the trees came down after one, two or three good jerks. There were at least a couple of dozen trees he felled this way. That is until he heard a loud noise like a gun shot behind the truck as he had stepped on the gas pedal. He thought the hitch had come off or the previous caretaker had dug up and fired his old musket. However, after further investigating, Benno discovered a good sized hole in the back tailgate of our truck which looked like someone had plastered him with a shotgun slug. But it appears that high test hook, which he had purchased at the local TSC store just a few days ago, had a flaw and had snapped in the middle during the tree removal try.  We did not find the other half of the hook and presume it’s inside the tailgate. I call this collateral damage but Benno called it very loud "shit".  On the good side I am just grateful this projectile did not hit the rear window of the truck and Benno was not harmed.

Meanwhile we’ve had hot weather down here in the southern part of Ontario, which made our efforts a bit harder as we sweated through several sets of t-shirts and shorts each day. Last week we picked up our granddaughter #2 who is 7 years old now and she turned out to be a good helper. Not that we wanted her to spend her vacation with us working, but I think she enjoyed picking up the clippings of tree branches and depositing them into the trailer. That made the job so much faster; great job, Annaliese.  Of course we had fun with her too with shopping for dresses and toys, playing games and a picnic at the beach.

It was so hot here the past weeks that I wonder if that brought out this big turtle that wandered into our neighbor’s yard. We fed it some lettuce and a celery stick. Even the geese came to the water’s edge to cool off.

A couple of days ago our Reggy got sick. He threw up and had a bloody diarrhea. Of course I took him to the Erie Veterinary Hospital to find out what is going on.  First I though he might have swallowed something he shouldn’t have eaten and I asked for an x-ray. That was not conclusive to Dr. Hussain so he sent the x-ray via Internet to a specialist in Texas. Their findings and conclusions suggested a Gastroenteritis for which he is treated now at home. We can tell he is under the weather and hope with all the meds he’ll be better soon.

That’s it for my update today. Hopefully I have better things to write about on my next post. Stay tuned.