Once a month we take any trash that we can not recycle, compost or burn to the Spencer land fill.  We pay 11 cents a pound for that and our bill each month comes to less than $2.00.  Also once a month we need to burn any papers, boxes etc that is able to burn nicely so today was that day.  We each have a burn barrel side by side so this is another of those “do it together ” projects.  We burn all the paper and waste from the house and mail and any fallen branches we had picked up on the land and got that all burned then walked out into the woods around the garden area and picked up old trees and limbs that were down and in the way of a nice walk through the woods.  We worked for about an hour and a half before we quit.  Doing that little bit of cleaning in the woods keeps nice walking paths cleared and pleasant for afternoon strolls.

This is that start of the wood land path to the bluff.  We run the tractor down there often to keep the brush from growing up on it.  It is a nice walk through the woods. 

This is almost at the bluff.  You can see the trail narrows as you get into the woods but the path is still kept cleared and is easy walking.  When the leaves are out, as they are now it looks more like the deep woods but the path is still easy to follow. 

This is at the bluff.  The trail has to turn here for to go straight , you would go down pretty straight.  The bluff is all wooded and we do not own down the bluff so we can not cut any trees over the edge of the bluff.  In the winter you can see through the trees into the valley below which is route 30 into McMinnville.  We would love to build a summer camp here up on stilts so you could see way down but I am afraid it will not happen in our life time.  It would be a nice place to relax and have picnics.  The trail goes right down into the gully and the edge of our property.  The houses on the Baker Mountain Road that are on the bluff are just up the next hill from there. Those home sites sell for over $100,000.  My bluff site will never be worth that much but it is still a nice spot.  Our land goes a short distance to the left and is marked by a yellow paint ring on one of the big trees.   So from the gate on the other side of the house to this bluff is the full length of the almost 7 acres to our land.

As we come back from the bluff and come out of the woods you see the garden again.  You see our garden gate, the lines that keep the deer out, the compost pile there under the tree that we planted the left over potatoes in and to the right  just off the view of the camera are the two burn barrels.  The potatoes in the compost pile are all up and looking great.  We now are putting the weeds into a big garbage can to compost and will add those to this compost pile next year to make another small garden for vines, such as melons, squash etc.                  Today I added some more streamers to the wire fence.  I got some Mint-X garbage bags and cut them into strips and that is what we are putting on the fence now to help keep the rabbits and skunks out of the garden.  I don’t know if it will work but I hope so, it is the best bet I have.  We will keep putting up more strips and more in the inside of the garden in the corn area as that grows, to keep the raccoons out.  We have not seen a raccoon this year but living on Raccoon Trail I know they are here.  If I leave a dish of cat or dog food out over night they would be here right away!   The lines run from fence to fence and to 5 different poles in the garden so they look like May Poles.  Those lines make it so there is no clear landing place for the deer to jump into the garden and so far it is working as we see the deer come through the area often but they have not gotten into the garden.  It also seems to work for the crows as they were checking out the garden within a day of our planting the corn and each day since they have flown over but now the corn is up and no crows have dared to fly into the garden.  I don’t think they could fly in without getting tangled in the lines.   That is our work for today.  Now we can relax and pray for rain.  There is rain to the west and south of us now and I do hope we get some of it as we need it badly.  I love it when the mountain protects us from the bad storms but do pray for the nice all day, gentle rains.  Have a great day.