Just a really wonderful weekend

Do you ever have one of those weekends that, once it's over, takes you a few days to recover from? That's what this last weekend was like for me. So many different things happened in such a short period of time, I feel a little muddled in the head. But it's a good muddled - one that comes from getting a lot done.

First, we had a knock on our door Saturday morning. Our neighbor, Ed, from down the road had come up to give us his opinion on taking down some Douglas Fir trees on our property. You may not have noticed, but our property is heavily wooded. Over the years, specific trees have been removed here and there by former owners of our house, but we had yet to feel the need to take any down. Until this year. My garden plots have recently begun to suffer from a lack of light due to a couple of trees directly to the south. Ed was an Oregon logger for 20 years and was a great guy to help us out. When he came up on Saturday, we thought he was only there to give his advice, but after providing that, with a sparkle in his eye, he went off to get his tools. Little did I know when I woke up that morning that we'd be tree-felling by 10:30am! And, whoa, have you ever seen that big of a chainsaw blade?:

The whole process was fascinating to me. He made his first cut:

Then he visually lined up where he wanted the tree to land:

Next, he made a "watermelon wedge" cut:

Followed by a bit more cutting:

Now it's time for the wedges. They get hammered in with the back of the axe:

Since this tree was coming down right along the fence line to the barn, I made sure all the animals were inside and safe....er...except for Beau:

That stinker literally became an immovable object and I was unable to convince him (there's no forcing a donkey if he doesn't wanna) to go into the barn. So, I just had to trust that he'd run away, if and when the time came. I was not happy about it, but he was juuuuust fine:

It's starting to go:

"Timmmmmm....:

...berrrr.......!":

Darn if Ed didn't drop that tree precisely where he said he was going to:

And, yes, Beau ran:

This one's going to take a while to clean up:

Then it was time for limbing:

Simple tools of the trade (I counted between 35 and 40 lines on the stump):

Since the tree was now down, I let the more cooperative members of my herd out of the barn. Kai llama was fascinated with the whole scene:

And the goats are loving all the fir branches I'm now hanging from the goat run fence:

He's a good guy, our neighbor, Ed.

For payment, all he asked for was a bottle of this. I find I'm still learning about the country way of life:

Ed is also the one I told you about yesterday who sold me my new, little trailer over the weekend, too:


In other weekend news... George, our new barn cat, met Roxy, our farm pup. This picture was taken just before the fur started to fly:

We went to our local farm and feed store's big annual sale. Among other items, I stocked up on numerous new hoof picks. Chester was unimpressed:

After everything else that happened, I still had time to meet a new neighbor up the road:

Meet Dancer. She's a four year-old mini mare and absolutely adorable. I hope to be able to spend more time with her when the weather dries up a bit:

And finally...Valentine's Day brought me 2 dozen beautiful red roses and a gorgeous white egg from my new Leghorn hen, Skippy:

Tell me, will the excitement never stop around here? :-)