Goodbye, Cozy Thicket

This was the area between our house and our closest neighbors. It was a briar patch, with wild black raspberry bushes that produced delicious berries, if only you could reach them among the thorns and poison ivy and mosquitoes and snakes. So the hauling guys cleared the area last fall. (We don't actually own a chainsaw.)

Here, the lilacs in the foreground have been hacked down, the half-dead silver maple in the background was removed (with a burr oak planted to replace it), and we liberated three cherry trees from the brambles (late summer 2004).

Thies borrowed a tiller and spent a few hours demolishing the giant roots that were still left in the ground. He put a big dent in Mount Mulch, then we planted some grasses and a few spirea (donated by Ann & Mark). One afternoon, I was hand-pulling a circle of weeds around one of the cherry trees. I got up for a drink of water, and Anna saw a huge garter snake slither from the weeds into the brush pile beyond.

That's the brush pile in the left-hand background. Last year we couldn't have imagined standing in this spot. The view is to the drive-through gate, with Mount Wood Chip beyond, and there's the playhouse.