After working like an animal for a couple weeks cutting brush and thinning the pines and then hauling it all into a season record 9 burn piles (in 1 week), I was exhausted and aching in every joint, and decided to take a rest day.
So I spent the time digging and compacting about 400 feet of trail to finish the path around the top of the hill.
Nothing like taking a break on a beautiful spring day!
The weather report said thunder storms were rolling in, so when I heard the first rumble miles away while tending to a burn pile at the bottom of the hill, I promptly gathered up the tools and hurried up to the cabin.
I learned that thunder storms up here are not fooling around, so was not surprised when a few minutes after I’d scuttled back into the cabin, the skies darkened and it started to hail. Violently.
Then the thunder and lightning came flashing and booming over the high ridge to the south.
It went on furiously for a half hour then settled down to a steady rain.
The last couple of weeks have been something of a blur of cutting and burning trees and brush. Unlike February when snow covered everything, March has seen a steady series of warmer storms fly over to drop rain.
And so all the piles from the fall were finally burned.
And burned.
And burned.
Then I started cutting new stuff. To burn. These enormous stumps give some idea of the size of the manzanita formerly gracing this part of the hillside with their awful presence.
That was a lot of effort.
I started working in the thick belt of pines along the road adjacent to the little pocket neighborhood of homes on the southern border of the property. First cutting and clearing the manzanita growing under the pines, then starting to thin the pines.
Exhausting couple of weeks.
It’s been a cold, wet, winter.
And one in which the area has received the “normal” pre-drought amount of annual precipitation, about 30 inches. That sounds like a lot, but this is red dirt country, mostly clay, so rain doesn’t absorb into the ground as much, and much runs off.
So it’s rained a lot and boy is it green up at the cabin. It rained overnight and into the morning a couple days ago, and the air was almost shimmering from the life force radiating from all the grasses and trees.
The morning after it rained, I was taking a turn around the hill upon which the cabin sits, and noticed a dense patch of lupines taking off. As I scanned the surrounding hillside, I was astonished at the number of little lupines poking up through the grass shoots and pine needles and leaves on the whole south face of the hill.
The wildflowers in May will be stunning.
Can’t wait!
Cabin on a hill 