Weekly Update – 1

Smith Family Farmstead > Blog > Lifestyle > Weekly Update – 1

Hazel, our red nose pit and in the background Albert, the cat.

We accomplished a few things this week.  Mainly just cleanup projects.  We cleaned the back porch, so we would be able to enjoy the space with the cooler weather to come.  Put away all the power and hand tools that I had used on the initial chicken coop build and the hydroponic setup.  I just don’t realize how cluttered it gets with day to day projects.  I guess I need to be better at putting everything away sooner.  It is a really nice place and the grandchildren really do like to spend most of the day outside.

Old chicken coop run with fence and mimosa trees.

We also partially cleared the area where we will be putting the chicken coop.  The area was overgrown a little.  There were a least a hundred little saplings growing and vine overgrowth too.  I used a hatchet to try to remove as much of the roots as possible and pulled out all the vines.  We still need to carry out some old fence pieces to the road.  We will be leaving the few mimosa trees that are growing in there for now.

60′ Oak Tree

This next part is how life will throw curve balls at you from time to time.  We had an exceptionally large oak tree fall.  The tree is located in between both my neighbor’s and my yard on the property line.  Luckily it did not do any damage to our property.  Our side neighbor has some minor damage to their pool cage.  Our rear neighbor had their chain link fence crushed.  We have cleared out most of the limb debris.  We have talked to our neighbors and have come to a decision to get quotes for removal.  The reason for this as you can see in the picture.  The trunk is setting on top of the stump.  There is still the possibility when we start removing the bigger limbs for the tree to spin toward my neighbors’ fence and pool cage.  Not wanting to cause more damage, we decided to get some quotes.  Thee quotes ranged from $2700 to $800 dollars. All were licensed and insured.  We chose the $800 dollar bid, since he had done work for Chandra’s sister and brother in law.  We are now trying to schedule the removal.  That’s it for last week, happy Monday!