The other day I had some time around the house by myself, so I fired up the tractor and roamed around the back yard with the box blade hanging down to the ground, pulling along sticks that were left from the felling of the tree, and leveling down the high spots in the area around the stump of the old tree. I’d have that stump down to the ground level, and out of the way, but it is massive, and my saw has not been keeping sharp. It is as though they are making it to dull out after one use. I cannot keep an edge on it, and I don’t know why.
Levelling the yard out is of course part of my master plan to make a space little ones can run freely in without us having to worry about them, and to consolidate where we have to mow, to make it easy to care for and keep looking good. Ever since the riding lawn mower up and died, and the price of those things went out of control, I don’t have the option to do anything for the lawn but a small push mower or even scythe it. I need a clear, easy path for either. Scything can work just fine, but the space is best open and with long, straight walking paths, rather than twists, turns, and worst of all, metal fences to keep getting the blade tangled up in.
The sky still has not laid our winter blanket over us, to cover till spring, of snow and frozen whiteness. As I type this at nearly six in the morning, it is 11F outside, equal to yesterday’s low. These are snow holding temperatures on the low end. The highs are just popping over freezing at the moment. Definitely still snow holding. But it just has not fallen! It’s Wednesday today, and the forecast shows that we should be picking something up over the weekend. It’s dry this year.
Speaking of dry, the water table remains low. I have not seen increase in the level where it is exposed, particularly the canal bottom, or the swale. The canal bottom is dry, no puddles in it. The swale, which is lover in elevation than the canal, is showing the high spot I created when I experimentally dumped the dirt into one spot to see how it formed. Of course, that failed as any kind of bridging base. But now it is fully exposed and could be walked over as far as it was dropped originally. I could get half-way across the swale! I’d like to bridge it once and for all, but to do it without timber or the like, I would need broken old concrete or something like that to build a stout base, then pour dirt over that. I’d be perfectly happy to reach part way with the dirt and concrete, then make a short wooden bridge for the difference.
Well, the clock is ticking, and the time to get up and get the kids out to school will arrive very shortly. Then it is time to figure out the day, and what’s next. Hopefully Missus will join me today and has had enough of her medical break away from home. That’s been a whole different issue, and one that has been difficult. But it’s personal. So, it need not be spoken of more. Suffice it to say, we’d like her home from hospital and on the mend now.