So this morning got off to a rough start.  I got a phone call from my mother, which is always touch and go.  After chastising me for not calling her (we’ve been in contact rather often, lately, so that in itself was weird), she informed me that some of my siblings would be coming over to burn the wood pile in the garden area.

No.  They are not.

It went downhill from there.

With the threat of fire hanging over us, my daughters and I went to start on cleaning up the wood pile.  We had intended to wait until more of the snow was gone, but it seems we don’t have much of a choice.

Ah, the joys of living in someone else’s house.  Even if that someone else in my mother.

Check this out, though…

This is the deer path running through the garden and the apple trees, leading to our feeding station.  There is another one running through the garden in the other direction.

We got quite a bit of progress on the wood pile, sorting it into piles of twig, larger pieces that will be cut down after they are moved, and a pile of leafy branches that are still quite green.

After removing about half of the pile, we found…

Old fiberglass insulation.

Something else to add to the “why is that there?” list!

Of the piles we’ve been making, this is the one that interests me most.

These pieces are very straight, smooth and still quite green.  I am hoping to get a good amount of wood slices out of them for various projects I have in mind.  The rest will be fuel for the fire pit, once we get that cleaned out and set up.  Looking forward to some late night wiener roasts! :-D  I’m also looking to build a cinder block cooker, though that might have to wait a year.  With all the clean up of deadwood, just in the yard, we’ll have plenty of fuel for that.

Much to my surprise, not long after we came in for the day, I saw Hungry Girl and Barbecue outside our window.  With all the activity outside, and the changes in the garden area, I thought they’d stay away for longer.  As I was taking photos (I’ll post some this evening), I was greeted by this, in the corner of the living room window.

So much ew.  Can you tell that I’ve cleaned this window ledge recently?  No, I can’t, either.

And that’s just one corner of one window.

Time to break out the vacuum again.

The Re-Farmer