I Hate Green Briars!

[baymule]

Today we have been utterly worthless. It has been a rainy day, so between that and exhaustion, we have laid up like a fat lizard on a rock in the sunshine. Only we've been in recliners under the AC. We've been going hard for two weeks and today was collapse day. I finally dragged myself outside at 3:00 and fed all the animals and crawled back in my recliner.

 

[Nyboy]

I am hoping to have a collapse day Sunday

 

[baymule]

This morning we did a burn pile out back. It was saplings that were cut when we had the barn built plus a couple of tree tops. Then this evening we chopped and loaded up another load of briar vines. We dumped them on the burn pile in the front and came in for showers.

@Nyboy I hope you get your collapse day!

 

[baymule]

@Devonviolet and her husband came by yesterday and we had a good visit. We had hot blueberry cobbler right out of the oven and sweet iced tea. We had a great time! Before they left, they had to go look at our latest work on the green briars. They were amazed at the difference! My husband had trimmed up a massive cedar tree yesterday morning. We hadn't cut the branches up yet to haul to the burn pile, we were going to do that this morning, but it is raining.
I went out in the drizzle to get some pictures, since @Devonviolet bragged on my husbands tree trimming, so I could show everybody. I was snapping pics and all of a sudden the drizzle went to a downpour. I ran to the house, but was soaked when I got there. Here's pics.

The cedar my husband just trimmed is in the far left of this picture. The alley you see here was cleared last spring so we could get to the property line to put up the fence. It is such a cool place in the summer searing heat!

I walked under the canopy to get this picture. Isn't this a beautiful tree? The branches touched the ground, the sheep have eaten all the green off and it's time to get it cleaned up.

More branches.

This is a very big tree. We love it. We try to truly care for our trees and take trimming them into careful consideration. My husband used to have a landscaping business and he knows how to trim, not butcher, a tree to take out dead branches and shape it up.

We pulled briars out of this tree and the trees surrounding it. We love our trees and have cut very few of them. We are going through this pasture, a little less than an acre, pulling out the green briars, dragging out the dead trees and branches on the ground, cutting dead standing trees and trimming the trees. In this one pasture we have Mayhaw, Hackberry, Hickory, Winged Elm, an Elm variety I haven't identified yet, native Persimmon, Cedars, Pine, Oak and at least one I haven't figured out what it is yet. Getting the briars out of there is letting sunlight get to the trees and opening up the canopy so sunlight can get to the ground. It is still a work in progress! And I still hate green briars!

 

[Nyboy]

I never realize Texas gets so much rain, for some reason I thought it was a very dry state. Nice trees someone once wrote God takes decades to grow a tree, a fool takes seconds to cut it down.

 

[baymule]

For some reason, people think ALL of Texas is dry desert. We have 5 climate zones here from sub tropical to dry desert. East Texas is lush, green, pastures and forests. I love east Texas.

On February 1, 2003, the Columbia space shuttle blew apart over east Texas. The media descended like a pack of ravening wolves. At first they wrote glowing reports of the beauty of Texas, in wonderment, like they too thought Texas was a desert waste land. Then as the weather warmed and the forest greened up and got thick, their attitudes changed. The forest can be so thick that you can stick your arm out and not see your hand. The media began to refer to Texas as "living behind the pine curtain." The thick growth made it hard on the crews on the ground, searching for pieces of the wreckage.

 

[Devonviolet]

Ahhh YES! Nothing like eating not too sweet tea and Blueberry Cobbler with Bay & her very sweet DH AND sitting & sharing good food & fellowship with kindred spirits! We always enjoy visiting Bay & her DH!

They have done an amazing job clearing the green briars! It was so cool to walk with the sheep & their wonderful LGD, Trip, where the briars had once been so thick they were holding up big dead, rotten trees - that should have fallen over YEARS ago!

 

[baymule]

We finally got back to that cedar tree and cleaned it all up. We made a burn pile and piled more briars on it. It wasn't windy this morning, so we burned it. Here's the tree. It looks so nice now!

Trip is eating his supper in the cooling shade of the trees. The cedar tree we just trimmed is on the left. Hard to believe that just over a year ago, you couldn't see between these trees-we had to hack our way through the brush and briars to get to the property line so we could get the fence put up.

 

[Smart Red]

Good job on that tree. It's an old one for sure. I'll have to take a few photos of Spouse's work clearing out the tree line.

 

[so lucky]

It's looking beautiful! Great job, Bay!