The first hot meal...

Yesterday we hauled up our grill and ate our first hot meal on the property. It's the little things that make this space feel like home. Just sitting around devouring onion & garlic cheeseburgers topped with tomato, ketchup and mustard, radiates a warm, comforting feeling that one typically feels sitting in their easy chair or kitchen table at home. Since most of the week has been full of thinning firs, this meal was a great break in the monotony of felling, limbing and piling.

We are slowly figuring out the front and back yard of the cabin site. I have flagged white spruce "keepers" on all four corners within 30-50 feet of the cabin. I am going to take out all the firs within this range. All poplar within a heights distance from the cabin will go as well. All shorter poplar will remain. Basically we will have one tree every 15-20 feet apart in the half acre area occupied by the cabin.

It's amazing how fast the water ran its course through the property. In just four days the melt water tapered off. The property is well drained. There will be one location where I will definitely build a board walk between the driveway and cabin. Other than that, I feel confident that the rest of the infrastructure will be poised well to accommodate future storms and spring melts.

We got a solid bid on the driveway this week. I purposefully waited until the runoff to bring a couple of contractor's to the land and bid out the driveway. That way they can see how the water will run under the most extreme circumstances and design the roadway accordingly. Most of our landscapes are shaped by the great, catastrophic events and resulting processes.

It's definitely feeling like spring. The "Alaskan sneakers" (rubber boots) are officially on. I haven't worn my fleece-lined pants in over two weeks. Cardinals are in the trees and the water is meandering it's way back to Superior...