The last two weeks seem to have been all about the wood.

Wood Part One:
Remember that huge ice storm we had a bit ago? It brought down oodles of branches from the pine trees. I guess living out in the boonies no one would really complain or send the Tidy Neighborhood Brigade after us, but we still figured we should gather the branches up. We spent a couple hours dragging the branches out of the trees and loaded them up in the truck and stacked them up in a pile near the sheeps.

We made four trips and built a huge pile of branches. Andy’s been tossing a few into the sheep area every day or two, and the sheep love it. Soon all that will be left is branches. Then….you are all invited over for a huge bonfire!

Wood Part Two:
We have a wood stove. We haven’t used it yet because…well…we don’t really know how to use it. I also think it would be a good idea to have it cleaned out before we use it. Plus, the wood is sooooooooo far away. However, someday we’d like to use the wood stove to help heat the house in the winter, so we’ve been keeping our eyes open for free wood. A guy in Bburg had a huge walnut tree cut down, so we went and picked up a truckload of the wood. Our need for a chainsaw continues to grow.

Wood Part Three:
I got tired of having piles of paper forming Close Encounter mountains in the kitchen, so I drew up plans for a recycle bin and bid Andy make it. We bought some hinges, but the rest of the materials came from wood we got from freecycle a while ago. It’s painted with “oops” paint, and…oh, yeah, we did buy the polyurethane stuff. The center isn’t painted yet in this picture and the door isn’t on, but if you squint you can imagine it in all it’s crayola yellow and electric green glory. (There’re slots in the top to put the paper in. One slot for glossy paper, one for newspaper, and one for regular paper. The bottom slots are for cardboard and the paper shredder.)

Since we’re pretty much done with wood for a while, we’ll be switching to grass projects this weekend. Anyone wanna come help us mow 3+ acres with a push mower? It’s orange!