The first clip shows my progress on clearing brush and junk trees away from the big oaks. The second is an example of the massive vines that are everywhere on this acreage.

A month or so back a limb broke off a big tree and blocked the road leading into our neighborhood of fifteen homes. The homeowner cleared the limb quickly but it was obvious there would be more falling he decided to have the tree taken down and today was the day.

The work was done by Korte Tree Care (the guys I use) and the crew made short work of this big ass tree, thanks to one amazing piece of equipment. I’m told the big truck cost about half a million bucks. Easy to believe watching it work. The operator appeared to be controlling it via Bluetooth unit at his waist so he could move around and see what he was doing.

They hauled off the really big sections of the trunk and left what you see here for the homeowner to use as firewood. Gonna need a big splitter.

It’s been a few weeks since I showed you the other big rocks hidden on the north side of The Annex and I think it’s a little easier to appreciate the geology in the short (30 sec?) video below.

The other three sides of the house got more attention for some reason so I fired up my chainsaws and started cleaning some of the brush (Mostly wild Honeysuckle, brambles and dead cedar trees). The short clip below is a before/after look and not one tree was felled during this clean-up.

A couple of weeks ago I posted some photos of a big rock on our newly acquired property. The previous owners built their house around this formation. Since then we’ve discovered another big rock on the other side (and behind) of the house. Hard to see because it’s covered in about forty years worth of dead leaves, Honeysuckles, and brambles.

We still have work to do but Rock #2 is finally getting some love.

The 20 second clip below shows what the formation looks like before and after some clean up.

We had a few trees removed today. Couple of dead/dying cedar trees and the big pine tree shown above. About half the limbs on this tree were dead and it was too close to the power line to take a chance. Once down we could see the tree was rotting from the inside so we made the right call.

On another part of the property there was a big (ugly) cedar tree in the middle of some gorgeous oak trees. It won’t be missed.

Our thanks to Cedric and his crew from Korte Tree Care. If you’re wondering, he’s wearing a “hard” cowboy hat.

The Annex was designed as an earth-contact home with a big ass rock as the defining feature. It is a cool rock and serves (for me) as a reminder of the impermanence of my existence.

But those giant oak trees. For years the previous owner allowed ivy vines to cover these beautiful trees. Very damaging to the trees over time.

So my first task after closing was to cut the vines. The tree guy we use assures me the vines will die in coming months and within a year the dead vines and leaves will fall from the tree.

We’ve been calling the rock “Dwayne.”

I (briefly) considered taking this tree down myself but it would have taken many hours to haul the logs and brush away. View on YouTube.

We don’t heat our home with firewood but Barb and I love a good fire. So I’ve been splitting logs for a lot of years. I used an axe until someone told me about splitting mauls. It’s hard work but good exercise (I told myself). But I’m done with the maul. Barb bought me an electric log splitter. She’s awful good about researching stuff like this and chose a very inexpensive splitter by WEN. At less than $300 it might be the cheapest electric log splitter sold. But set-up was simple and I was splitting logs in no time.

Took about an hour to split enough wood to last us the winter. We keep a rack on the deck and the rest in a big stack out back.