44 degrees outside - 9: 37 pm - we have been rain free for almost 24 hours...
Tonight during Caitlyn’s ballet class she lost her first tooth and boy was she excited! For me it was one of those aha moments. As I watched Caitlyn proudly showing off her tooth, I realized once again how fast they grow up and that my baby girl isn’t a baby anymore. I have to admit that underneath my smiles I was a little sad, yet at the same time excited for this important childhood moment of the first lost tooth.While Caitlyn and I were at her ballet class, Tony and Jack were home in the excavator working on stump removal. When we first looked at this property back in 2005, we really had to use our imaginations because the property was a solid wall of brush, trees and stumps. After many long hours of clearing away all the Salmon Berry, Vine Maple and Alder it uncovered dozens of old growth snags and stumps left over from the Yacolt Burn of 1902, which was the largest forest fire in recorded Washington state history.
 |
| our driveway - before and after |
Even though these stumps and snags have been dead for over 100 years most are still solid wood. This makes for an extremely difficult removal. After many hours of excavator and dozer time we finally hd a clearing large enough for a build site and a buffer zone for any potential forest fires. Years later we are still finishing up the removal of the last of the stumps.
 |
| one of the snags that we are keeping just because it would be extreamly hard to remove it and it looks kind of neat |
 |
| another neat lookin snag that we are keeping |
