How busy is too busy?

 

To say that's it's been a busy stretch would be an understatement. It's that time of year when you look around and see a few things that need done before the really cold weather creeps up on you. So I got busy, did the work, and I videoed a lot of it. 

There was cleaning up the wood yard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOMDflULKhs&t=8s 

I harvested the basil and made pesto. It's not really a cooking vid, just the way I do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k922IppD3FE&t=17s

One day, I took some time to do the little bit of fall decorating I do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC2V-dpXLVU

But the really BIG THING that happened was the tree trimmers finally arrived to take down the mostly dead oak tree. I've been sorting and organizing the logs so that when the wood dries out enough to split, it will be an easier job. That video isn't out yet, but it's coming soon. 

On top of all that at the home front, I've been out to dinner with friends, dined with family, and enjoyed the weekly Trivia Nite at a local "tavern" with a cousin. The game takes place in the ballroom so you know it's not a real tavern. I canned a batch of green peppers, chicken breast, and white bean and sausage soup.

This week, I put on my author hat and started to add my backlist to Audible. You can read about that over at Between the Keys. If you already have some of my titles, you can add the audiobook for $1.99. It's going to cost me a small fortune to get the audiobooks into my personal library, but it'll be worth it. 

It seems like I have something to do every day, and by the end of the day, I'm bushed. Heck, I went to bed with the chickens last night and slept for nine hours! 

In reality, I think it's good to be busy. Having nothing to do would make life pretty boring. Those days are just around the corner. Winter will arrive and my days will shrink to the computer, the TV, and the woodstove. 

Until then, I'll count my busy blessings.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, YouTube, autumn, gardening, woodstove, firewood, tree trimming, cooking, basil, Black Labrador Retriever, family, trivia, winter, audio books

Tree topping in Triple H weather - not advised

I've been a bit MIA lately, and that's because I've been working with the cousin in Triple H weather. That's hazy, hot, and humid in case you don't live in the Mid-Atlantic region and don't know. I can only work for a couple of hours at a time when I'm on my own. If I get heat stroke, I'll lie there and be dead before someone misses me. We don't want that to happen! 

My property is a three-acre lot and two of those acres are wooded. That's fine. I like trees. The only thing that beats shade in the summer is central air in the house. But I digress...

Back in 1981 the trees were not this big. They grew, and some of them became uncomfortable neighbors. Cousin Dave and I rented a "cherry picker" lift and topped out six of them. I'm in the midst of cleaning up the brush so we can cut firewood rounds. It's going to take many, many, many days to get it all finished, but in the end, our firewood rounds stockpile will be in good shape. 

Deuce has a bit to say about the lift we rented. He was not impressed. https://deucesday.blogspot.com/2025/07/whats-this-thing.html

Years ago, I began to post short videos so my husband could see what was happening around the manor in places he could no longer physically get to. There were also dog vids, and vids of walks and such, all posted in the hope he'd feel included. 

After he passed, I pondered whether or not to start a more intense video project, and to that end I've been recording my activities on the manor. My YouTube channel is called The Hideaway Between the Keys, and as with all things, Google knows where to find me. I think YouTube has changed up some things and it's now youtube.com/@KCKendricks. I think. I'm still figuring a lot of "stuff" out. 

I'll have upcoming videos of the tree trimming and cleanup, as well as some general gardening and general manor activity vids. It really is my life unscripted. 

But back to the Triple H weather, I'm pretty much done for the day with outside work. I grabbed the chainsaw around 7:15 AM and worked clearing the brush from the top of one of the downed maples until the sunshine stole the shade from me. I'll go at it again tomorrow morning. Once I have the smaller, lighter brush removed, the cousin will return with his big saw and finish the heavier work. Sooner of later, it'll all get done and I'm fine with that. My plan is to get to the end goal without giving myself a heat stroke. 

Good plan!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, KC Kendricks, YouTube, country lifestyle, rural living, tree trimming, firewood, weather, heat stroke, Milwaukee chainsaw, John Deere 1023

Another one bites the dust

For no apparent reason, one of the trees along the lower stone fence uprooted and fell behind the leaning cherry tree. It's safe to say the fun never ends! 

It's a bit of a mess, but just like every "project," if I take it one step at a time, it's manageable. It also means more firewood.

My cousin and I already had the leaning cherry on the agenda to harvest. The tree is leaning, sure, but it's not a threat to my house so there's no hurry. Now that this other tree is behind it and applying pressure, it may come down on its own. It's okay if it does. 

Hopefully, before that happens, we'll be able to cut the uprooted tree in such a way to relieve the pressure. I certainly wouldn't want the cherry coming down on top of me while I'm mowing the front yard. 

The downside is we're both well-stocked with 

firewood for the 2025-26 season. My cousin has a space problem.  I don't. I can store a lot more split wood than he can. I'm pretty sure we'll cut the rounds now and split later.  And if we need to store all the rounds here on the manor, that's fine. He'll know where it is when the time comes. 

While I have enough trees to keep us both in firewood for as long as we both live, I do worry about the condition of the trees. I don't think our forests are as healthy as they used to be. We have several non-native insects causing damage and there is no way for me to protect the trees on my property. A homeowner can't spray an oak that is one-hundred feet tall. 

But that's a worry for another time and another person. I'll do the best I can do for the years left to me. That's all any of us can do. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, forests, trees, firewood, property management, insect damage, oak tree, cherry tree, rural living, country lifestyle

Didn't plan on having this work to do

In the previous post I mentioned we were hit by a big wind during the night that caused minor damage to the deer barriers around the garden. It also snapped the top out of a cherry tree. Thankfully, this tree was not near the house, but it did fall across my tractor path. 

I wasn't planning on having this clean up to do, but it's not going to be a difficult job. I have a Milwaukee chainsaw that runs on batteries, and I made sure the batteries are charged. I'll take the John Deere 1023 over and start cutting and clearing. When I've used up the juice in the four batteries I have, I'll move on to what I actually did have planned for today - mowing and moving the remainder of the seedlings to the greenhouse. 

It's going to take several days to completely cut this downed cherry into firewood rounds. I'm okay with that. Running on battery power will keep me from working with the chainsaw for too long and getting tired. Running a saw when tired is not a good idea. And being retired, I have no need to remove this tree in one day. There is plenty of room to maneuver the tractor around it. 

Do you know what will keep me focused on the task at hand? Cherry is excellent firewood and it dries, or seasons, fast enough that come next January I can begin to burn it. That's just in time for what is typically our cold stretch. 

Life on the manor requires some hard work, but rarely is anything a singular endeavor. Every "chore" reaps multiple rewards. Processing this tree will be great exercise and will keep me warm next winter. I think it's win-win. Except for the tree, of course. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, cherry tree, John Deere 1023, Milwaukee M18, firewood, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life

Keeping a country girl warm

Rural living is not for the lazy. I know this because I live it. It would be much easier to watch television and play on the Internet all day than it is to go outside in fifty degree weather and split firewood for three or four hours. I'll take splitting firewood any day of the week over watching the vast wasteland.

There are a lot of trees here on the manor. Most of them are maple but there's a good smattering of oak, wild cherry, and poplar tossed in. I don't harvest healthy trees for firewood unless they've gotten tall enough to be a threat to the house or develop some other issue that will be a problem in the near future. In October of 2023, I had a professional come and take down a leaning maple. It was wood from that maple my cousin and I split and stacked yesterday. And we still have some to go, but he wants to haul that to his place and work at his leisure. 

The old adage is that firewood warms you three times. Once when you cut down the tree, twice when you split the wood, and thrice when you burn the firewood. My grandfather used to repeat that every year and it's true. Working firewood can make you sweat even in cold weather. 

I actually enjoy wood cutting season. I like working outside far more than cleaning house (I keep my house tidy enough, thank you). I like the aesthetics of a neatly stacked rank of firewood although I'll be tarping the ranks for the winter in the next few days. I already have enough firewood stacked just inside the basement door to last through January. Once what I have inside is burned, I'll only bring over enough for two or three weeks at a time so I don't have any wood inside over the warmer months. 

Yes, burning firewood is hard work, but it serves multiple purposes. It keeps dead trees from causing damage to my house, working firewood is good exercise, and burning firewood reduces my electric bill.  

I don't think there is any better heat than wood heat. Wood heat is a "hot" heat. No cool air swirls around the way it does with a furnace or heat pump. Wood heat is a constant heat without the continual cycles of cooling and warming you get with a heat pump. And if there is a storm and the power goes out?  Well, I won't freeze and neither will my water lines because the woodstove is impervious to power outages. 

I was born country, so using firewood to heat my house is not a foreign concept. It's all part of the self-reliance that is bred into "country folk." It's hard work, but people out here don't run from that. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, country lifestyle, rural living, hard work, power outages, water lines, winter weather, maple, oak, a writer's life, heat pumps

Where did they come from?

We've certainly had some nice, sunny days this February. And the countdown to spring stands at twenty-seven days! Deuce and I took full advantage of the sunshine and fifty-degree temps this afternoon. I "worked" and the dog wandered about the yard.

I don't worry about him when we're outside. He's eight, and disappearing off the property is something he's yet to do. Even when we walk down the lane and Cousin Dave is outside, Deuce will look at me and wait for me to tell him it's okay before he trots down to meet his favorite cousin. 

So I worked at various things. One of my woodpiles was hastily stacked and I've hated looking at it all winter. The cousin insisted I put skids (pallets) down, which did not work. For one thing, critters took up residence in the dry space the pallets provided. Not good, not good. The second thing was the skids themselves. They were old and they collapsed under the weight of the firewood. Oops. Sorry, not sorry Mr. Possum. Your squatter rights have been rescinded! 

Anyway, I restacked the firewood the way my grandfather used to do it. I used two trees as end supports and stacked as high as my head. Then I moved to the other side of one of the trees and stacked to the next tree. It not only looks good, but it created a little windbreak for when we split firewood for the 2025-26 season. My woodyard will be nice and tidy for the summer. 

But that's not why I'm writing about today. Before I started stacking, Deuce and I took a stroll around the manor. I spotted crocus blooming in a spot where I've never planted crocus bulbs. I can only assume the wind played a big part in it. 

Spring will be here in the blink of an eye. It'll be time to switch to full gardening mode. I'm grateful for these sunny days that give me the opportunity to get so many things off my to-do list before the summer heat hits and I melt. Melting is just not pretty.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, crocus, spring, seasons change, firewood, yard work, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life, black Labrador Retriever, gardening

Hard work helps

 

The past two weeks have not been anything to brag about. The Lord of the Manor's illness has tested us yet again, and this time we've failed. It's easy to blame one or the other, but we've both allowed anxiety to overcome us. It has not been pretty. However...

The Lord of the Manor's situation is improving, and I've taken the opportunity to escape the house. Granted, I'm only doing things I'd be doing anyway, but it's away from his demands. Today went well. Yesterday, not so much.

We're in the middle of what the old-timers call the January thaw. Yes, it started in January so the term applies. Yesterday and today, the weather was perfect for this time of year and I took full advantage of it. 

• Pick up sticks and limbs blown down
• Burn the sticks; brush
• Bring over firewood
• Spread mulch from tree-trimmers on tractor path
• Restack parts of the woodpile needing it (sort out the too-long pieces and throw on brush pile)
• Spread clean crush gravel
• Prepare and set Brush Crusher 4200 on the new pallet

City dwellers may think that a short list, but anyone living out in the country knows just how much time is involved. And I did all that while running in and out of the house to check on the ailing partner, doing a load of laundry, and preparing two meals and an evening snack each day.

I may be woman, and I may roar, but bedtime is nine o'clock. 

I'm very pleased to have this "pre-spring" clean-up almost finished. I've got one spot to get the fallen sticks and limbs from as soon as the ground dries up enough to get the tractor in there. 

What did I do before I got the John Deere 1023? I worked harder! The tractor is a game changer. 

I wish I could say I feel at least a smidgeon of guilt about running out on an ailing spouse, but I don't. The outside work is therapy for me. I'm physically tired, but I feel so much better. Today there were no harsh words spoken on either side. This is a good thing. 

Tomorrow will bring another test. I need to go to the landfill, and I must stop at UPS to send an item back to Amazon. How will he react to being left alone? Will he be patient and stay in his recliner and enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee? Or will he pull another stunt and end up lying on the floor until I get home and pick him up? 

It's a coin toss, but I will leave and run my errands in the morning. And when I return home, hopefully, I'll be able to get into the lower section of the woods for the deadwood. 

Spring is coming, though. Working in the woods, I've spotted daffodil sprouts everywhere! It gives me hope that this time of trial will pass and I'll come out the other side even stronger. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holy Tree Manor, The Hideaway, John Deere 1023, Brush Crusher 4200, rural living, country lifestyle, daffodils, caregivers, firewood

Who's that roaming around the woodyard?

It's always a good thing if you can laugh at yourself, or at least shake your head and mutter. 

The weather today left a lot to be desired. Gray skies, dreary. A definite winter bite in the breeze. It was a good day to pull a heavy sweatshirt out of the drawer and layer it with a turtleneck. 

Can you even buy a turtleneck these days? 

If you needed positive proof The Lady of the Manor exists, here it is. I have several trail cams now and it's difficult to walk around the yard and not trip one of them. 

Those windows you see in the background are the windows in my sunroom office. I was peacefully working at the computer when I heard a ruckus over my left shoulder. Of course, it was Loki. He'd chased a squirrel over the woodpile and somehow managed to catch it. I went out and convinced him to let the poor squirrel go. It scurried off, I'm happy to report. 

So there you have it. The fingers that pound on the keyboard are really attached to a person and not to some AI-generated fake. 

And the sweatshirt? Yep. It's an old one from the 1990s. It's got Terry LaBonte's #5 racecar on it. It's warm, too!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, Terry LaBonte, rural living, bad cats, country lifestyle, firewood, sunroom, squirrels, trail cams

Growing ginger and general grumpiness

Growing ginger is easy, or so the plant gurus on YouTube said. Well, okay. I'll give them that. It was pretty easy to get it growing. I went to the grocery, selected a piece of ginger that had green nubs on it, and stuck it in the dirt. It grew.  

I don't bring a lot of plants inside in the fall, but I brought in the ginger. It now looks sickly. At the same time, it has new shoots coming up. I'm befuddled. I'm also tempted to cut it back and see what happens. 

Maybe wanting to cut off the ginger is just part of my general grumpiness this morning. It's a balmy 25F/-4C at the moment. I checked the hourly forecasted temps and it looks like all I can hope for this afternoon is 47F/9C. And of course, I need to bring in a tractor bucket or two of firewood today. I'd like it to be about 57F, but as Mick and the boys say, you can't always get what you want. 

I also need to hop on the John Deere x370 mower and make one last pass over the lawn to chop up the remaining leaves. Then there is the new story I'm working on. I'd like to have time later today to work on it a bit. "They" say write first and then do chores, but I'm living in the real world here. If it is to be it is up to me. I no longer have the luxury of a helpmate. 

So I'm grumpy. I don't expect to get over it any time soon. Spring is 115 days away. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, ginger plants, firewood, leaves, John Deere x370, rural living, country lifestyle, grumpy, a writer's life, 

Frosty morning

We've been busy here at the manor. Work in the woodyard is progressing, albeit slowly. I cut and split a lot of the smaller logs on my own, and now the cousin needs to take care of the bigger logs. Usually, we work together, but our schedules haven't meshed the last two weeks.  

We had our first frost back on November 2. It wasn't a hard frost, though. The only plants I lost were the begonias, but they're pretty tender. The herbs in the Greenstalk are still green. 

The garden area is empty. The five-gallon buckets are empty. The grow bags are empty. It would seem a sad end to the season, but it's not. It's a readying for renewal. I've already got some seeds for next year and I'm planning what I want to concentrate on. This year I grew a little of a lot of different veggies. Next year I want to have one large crop with only a few smaller items. 

The mercury has dipped down into the low thirties at night and I've been firing-up the woodstove. Himself is happy because the living room gets toasty in the evening. I close the doors to the back of the house to keep the heat out. I like my bedroom to be cool so I sleep better. Opening the door about half an hour before I turn in warms the room up just enough. 

On the writing front, I finished Sumner's Garden and it's live at the vendors I use. Finishing that story was bittersweet. I've been writing for over twenty years and with the advent of artificial intelligence, I don't know if I want to continue to read, much less write. I was happy to see Amazon asking if the book I was offering for sale used AI in the writing. That's a NO. I don't like the idea of AI at all. I think its hidden dangers will be revealed too late to those who embrace it. 

It's time I got busy with freeze-drying again. I let it go over the summer in favor of canning, but I've laid out a plan to keep that unit working. 

The trees have shed almost all of their leaves so it's time to clean the gutters. Tomorrow looks to be the day with afternoon temps forecasted to be in the low sixties. After that, it'll be time to hop on a mower and chop some leaves. And if there's time, I'll bring over a tractor bucket of firewood and drop it outside the basement door. 

A frost isn't a bad thing. It simply signals it's time for different things to happen. It is a portent of the changes ahead, of the slide into winter sleep. The manor is ready for it. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, country living, rural living, changing seasons, frost, firewood, woodstove, home food preservation, freeze drying, Greenstalk, trees

The days go by fast

I'm happy to have completed a six-week stint filling in for the young woman who took my position when I retired. She's been on maternity leave and I was asked to help keep the office afloat. It was a lot more stressful than I thought it would be, but now it's in the past. I posted a bit about it over on my writing blog, Between the Keys. The bottom line is that I'm delighted I can return to my real life here at Holly Tree Manor. 

Even with spending time back on the job, I managed to get a few things accomplished. The gardening season finished and firewood season began. The firewood for the 2024-25 winter got a big boost when I hired a service to take down the leaning maple. That maple had been leaning since 2003 when Hurricane Isabel hit us. 

The Mad Canner was busy, too. I made and canned apple pie filling and curried apple chutney, plus chicken and beef broth for the pantry. 

Autumn is waning and we're drifting toward winter. The nights have really cooled down and I've had the woodstove burning. We get some rather wide temperature swings this time of year so I need to pay attention to the weather forecast to balance using the woodstove with cycling the heat pump. On sunny afternoons, I don't need either one. 

I don't mind the changing of the seasons. There is beauty in each one, and each brings a set of chores to be done. Yesterday, I worked in the woodyard for about an hour and a half, then hopped on the X370 John Deere mower to chop leaves. This time of year the leaves are a never-ending task, but I can't let them smother my poor grass. I estimate I'll need to mow the leaves two, possibly three, more times, and the leaf blower will get a workout, too. I don't mind that job, either. I love being outside. 

Dawn has passed and there is blue sky overhead. It's time to join the Lord of the Manor for morning coffee and to find out if he's feeling up to helping me any today. I'll get more rounds cut if he's on the tractor using the brush crusher to lift and hold them for me. But I can do it by myself if necessary.

That's one of the things living in the country has taught me. It is up to me. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, John Deere x370, John Deere 1023, autumn, country lifestyle, rural living, empowered women, home food preservation, apple pie filling, a writer's life

Don't blink - autumn is over

Just three days ago I was outside taking photos of our lovely, lovely autumn to make a collage to remember 2023. 

And it has been a lovely fall! The colors, the sunlight, the glow in the afternoon - beautiful! I've loved every moment I was able to be outside. 

We all knew it wouldn't last forever, but I lit the first fire in the wood stove in what seemed like the blink of an eye. 

It wasn't a "blink," it was just three days. That's pretty fast for around here. We usually take a long, slow slide out of autumn. Overnight the trees dropped half their remaining leaves. 

I'm reminded of how my grandmother would take me outside as a child and we'd gather up different colored leaves. She'd then iron them between two sheets of wax paper and stick the sealed sheet on the refrigerator to remind us of autumn. I was tempted to do that this year, but I have no one to share it with. 

I'm not particularly sad about getting the wood stove going. I've worked hard over the last eighteen months to "lay in" a supply of firewood. It would have been a complete waste to let those downed trees simply rot away. Yes, if I knew someone with a mill, I could have sold them, but there isn't a sawmill anywhere near here, so they went for firewood. 

I'm not alone in lighting a fire in the stove. The scent of wood smoke is heavy on the breeze this evening. I noted, when Deuce and I were out walking, the cousins have smoke coming from their chimneys, too. 

It may seem like cutting and splitting firewood, and keeping the stove hot is a lot of work, and it is. But it is also one of the simple country pleasures that bless my life. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, woodstove, firewood, simple country pleasures, autumn ending, hard work, sawmill, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life

Work continues in the woodyard

It is that time of year - time to cut, split, and stack firewood. My cousin and I have been hard at it for the last week and we've barely made a dent in the logs harvested from taking down the leaning maple. I suspect we'll be burning firewood from that harvest into the 2025-26 season.  I have wood stacked in places I've never stacked before. 

Working with my cousin is enjoyable but challenging. He's a lot stronger than me so he gets ahead of me. He runs the splitter, and I load the firewood into the John Deere bucket to take and stack. Generally, he's got a pile for me to scoop up by the time I get done stacking and get back to him. 

I have the rack inside the shop full of firewood. That's inside and ready to go. There is a stack just outside the basement door which I will rotate in when there is room. It might get a bit damp, but it'll have time to dry back out before it's burned. After that stack is inside, I may or may not bring over some of the poplar to stack outside the door. It depends on the weather. I may just hold off and drop it directly down the outside basement steps. It's great to have the John Deere! 

It's so easy to move wood with the tractor. I rest the bucket against a woodpile and give the firewood a shove into the bucket. Sure, I have to pick up any pieces that miss, but very few do. Then I simply drop the load down the steps, go inside and open the door, and stack what I dropped in the inside rack. When you have a repetitive task, you find ways to make the job easier. 

Living on the side of a mountain can be a lot of hard work, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I was raised by adults who believed work was good for a person, and that it gave a person purpose. They were correct. 

I've been on the receiving end of a few nasty comments over the years. How it must be nice to have been given acreage. Yes, it was. But our grandfather would not have given each of us property if we hadn't proven we were willing to work, both at our jobs and in our personal lives. It's not that difficult to do when you have good examples to emulate, and our grandfather was the best. 

We know the value of having firewood on hand. Our local power grid is about to be overloaded and we know it. We may be in the dark this winter, but we'll be warm. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, John Deere, country lifestyle, rural living, hard word, autumn rituals, family

Tree carnage (the tree service was here)

Our number finally rolled up to the top. The tree service rolled in yesterday at about 2:00 PM. By 4:30 PM, their job was done, I'd paid the man, and they rolled out of here. I'm a couple thousand dollars poorer, but it was worth every penny not having to clean up the brush. 

We sat on the sunroom porch and watched the action. The owner of the company and a certified arborist did the chainsaw work, and three Spanish-speaking men chipped the brush and other chores. 

I'd hired them to take down the leaning maple. That tree has been leaning since Hurricane Isabel in September 2003, but the situation deteriorated recently. The tree it was leaning on began to show signs of stress, so it was time. Then to complicate it more, a week or so ago, the top broke out of a neighboring tree and landed on the leaner. 

We expected them to work from the top of the leaner down, cutting off branches until they'd untangled the intertwined branches and limbs of both trees. They did not. 

The arborist went up in the bucket and did some cutting, dropping several large branches before securing two ropes, the precise location we couldn't pinpoint. He then came down and he and the owner had a conference before the owner set to work with his chainsaw. 

He notched the supporting tree, and then the leaner. When he moved behind the leaner to make his cut, we realized their plan was to drop both trees at once. It worked and once the trees were on the ground, the chipping began. 

They cut firewood poles and moved them to an out-of-the-way spot. The resulting mulch from the chipping was dumped on a pile to cure. I'll use that next year to mulch weedy areas along the stone fence. They even raked up the leaves. The only job left for the cousins and me to do now is work the pile of firewood poles at our leisure. 

It was worth every penny. I think I'll have them come back in a few months and take down another maple that could become a hazard. 

We generally like to do things ourselves, but 1)we're not getting any younger, and 2) we're smart enough to know when to call in the professionals. 

The view from my desk is different this morning, but it's a change I feel good about. I can't say that about much. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, tree trimming, rural living, country lifestyle, arborist, woods, maple trees, Hurricane Isabel 2003, a writer's life, tree service, new views, firewood

Moving from garden to firewood

My gardening season is over. There is one lone basil plant in the garden and I'm toying with the idea of putting it in the greenhouse to see how long it will go. The begonias will stay in their planters until a hard frost gets them. I'm content to let them go because the mother plants will tucked away all nice and cozy in the den this winter with a grow light. 

The Greenstalk has been moved to its new location by the patio. The daylilies have been repotted and the big pots are ready for next year. The year #1 buckets have new soil and are in the greenhouse waiting for spring. 

My best tip for anyone planning a container garden - woven ground cover from Grower's Solutions. It held up to foot traffic, stopped the grass and weeds, and is easy to keep tidy. I used the leaf blower to keep it free of debris. 

I feel really good about the 2023 season. I not only enjoyed having the garden and watching it grow and produce, but I gained more knowledge. My garden will never feed us for an entire year, but it puts a few fresh things on the table with some left over to preserve.  

Now it is time to move from gardening season to firewood season. I have a good supply of firewood for this year, and what we split now will be for the 2024-25 winter, and possibly beyond. I have a large maple that I've contracted with a service to take down, and an equally large cherry that I could drop but my cousin says he will do the honors. 

Before we get really into it, there is a small pile of cherry and oak to split and stacked that can be burned toward the end of this year if needed. Using the bucket on the John Deere, I'll bring some poplar up to the house and clear a spot to begin stacking for next year. We worked a lot harder before we got the tractor. 

Life in the country moves with the seasons. There's comfort in being in tune with nature. I may not have the biggest house or drive a brand-new car (by choice, mind you), but I am content to be where I am with what I have. And not only am I content, I am generally happy with my life and my country lifestyle. 

Yes, there is work to do. Daylight, I'm waiting on you!

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, gardening, rural living, being content, John Deere, country lifestyle, a writer's life, nature, cherry trees, grow bags, tomatoes, peppers, tree service

Throw those plans out

My plan for today didn't include rain, so of course it's raining. It's not that I don't have myriad things I can do, because I do. They just weren't what I wanted to do.  

Gardening season is effectively over. I sliced the last of the green Bell peppers and put them in the freezer yesterday. The butternut squash is harvested and resting on the counter on the patio. The only things left to do is to freeze-dry the basil and collect a few seeds for next year. 

With the garden over, it is now firewood season, and I wanted to start on that today. I have a rank of poplar that needs to be brought over to the house to begin with this year. Poplar burns fast and is sort of a pain in the ass when it's really cold, but it's great for smaller burns to warm up the house to take the chill off. I'll burn maple, oak, and cherry when it's really cold outside. 

There are a few of the large maple rounds from last year that still need to be split, and a pile of oak and cherry from last year to finish and stack. The log splitter is not sitting where I want it, but it's out of the way of the tree trimmer for when he shows up to take down the leaning maple. It's all about prioritizing the work so it can be done in an order that doesn't make more work for yourself. 

But it will have to wait for another day. I tell myself that on a rainy day, I need to relax. Maybe I should bake cookies or work on a book. Sumner's Garden is the current work-in-progress. I know how it ends so I should get there and finish everything up so I can publish it. No, I don't lack for things to fill my day even if I didn't plan to do them today. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, rainy day, firewood, rural living, country lifestyle, time management, homestead living, end of season, gardening, a writer's life

Yes, I can

It's always good to push yourself beyond what is easy. Don't be foolish and do something that will get you injured, but take that one step past the "easy" zone. I've been taking my own advice since I retired in May 2022.

When I moved onto my property in 1981, I had a lot of help. My father and grandfather were living and they were willing. I worked side-by-side with them to clear an area to build my house. I learned to use and maintain a chainsaw and how to use a log splitter. Fast forward a decade and more, and the Lord of the Manor moved in with me. My little homestead is somewhat high maintenance, but he wasn't daunted. He'd always wanted to live in the country and do all the things we do. 

Time marches on and is not kind to everyone. He's now in a wheelchair and can't do all the things. That means if I want to burn firewood, I have to take the responsibility of getting it done. 

I have a couple of wonderful cousins who come and help me now. I love them and appreciate them, but I also like to be self-reliant. Earlier this year, the Lord of the Manor, a retired mechanic, swapped out the motor on the log splitter to a newer one that starts with a key. 

Last year, about this time, we took down two very large maples that had the potential to fall and land on the house. A lot of the wood was handled last year, but the large trunks were left to dry for a year in the hopes they'd weigh a bit less. I worked on cutting the trunks into rounds when I had the chainsaw out, and some of the rounds are upwards of thirty inches across. That's BIG.

I wasn't sure I could manage a round that large on my own, but I wrestled two rounds over to the log splitter and got them split. Now I know that if I have to split them without help, I can do it. 

But come October, I'm calling the cousins for a wood-splitting party. They'll get free firewood and I won't have to work so hard! 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, splitting wood, firewood, log splitter, rural living, country lifestyle, autumn jobs, empowerment, self-reliance, a writer's life, maple trees, chainsaw

How old is that log splitter?

We have an old, and I do mean old, MTD log splitter. It's been a workhorse. I think we got it around 1995 and it hasn't missed a beat - except for one thing. We got to the point in life where neither of us can give the pull starter rope a good rip to get it started. We're lucky we can call next door and my cousin will come and give it a yank, but we like to be more self-sufficient. To that end, Himself has swapped out the motor with the pull starter to one with a battery and a key. 

This should have been done years ago!  

It wasn't an easy job for him to do. He worked on it a little bit at a time over the course of many days. He had to purchase a few new tools to remove the old motor. He had to purchase new tools to mount the new one. We ordered new hydraulic hoses, too. You might wonder why we didn't simply go buy a whole new splitter with the electric start, but damn. Prices are astronomical! The old auto mechanic put his rusty skills to good use and at a fraction of the cost. 

Living among the trees as we do, the log splitter is a necessity. Keeping the trees trimmed so that they stay healthy, plus what Mother Nature drops to the ground, keeps us in firewood. Last year was an anomaly in that we deliberately cut down three trees, but those threatened the house. I can't let that wood go to waste. That wood will warm three houses in cold weather. 

I'm happy to have saved the old MTD splitter. Just like a lot of people in this world, it may be old, but it's completely functional. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, MTD log splitter, rural living, country lifestyle, firewood, equipment, electric starter, function

Now I have to clean it up

We have over two hundred trees at Holly Tree Manor, which means Mother Nature throws a lot of firewood at us. Our decision late last year to harvest three trees was not the norm. Those trees posed a somewhat immediate threat to the house (the big poplar was very much a threat) which was why we made the decision to cut them down. If a tree dies naturally we harvest those and we don't lack for firewood. 

Last summer I gathered up bits and pieces of downed wood and such and piled it out by the little woodpile. That woodpile is one of Loki's favorite perches but it's really sort of community property for everyone's campfires and fire pits. Well....

Now I have to clean up those sticks. I'd hoped they'd get burned but it didn't happen. It's not a difficult task with the John Deere tractor but it's something I need to take the time to do when I'd rather be planting tomato seeds. 

Lesson learned. I won't stack anything in front of the woodpile again. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, woodpile, firewood, rural living, country lifestyle, John Deere 1023, a writer's life, gardening, homestead prepper

Staying warm with a negative wind chill

It's cold outside! The Weather Channel, or what the hell ever entity, has dubbed this massive storm/cold front/artic blast Winter Storm Elliott. The snow and the cold don't bother me too much. We live in the country and we prepare for such things. Wind gusts are another matter. We don't much like the wind even though it delivers firewood to the ground. 

Now is the time all the hard work my cousin and I did scant months ago will pay dividends. Cutting and splitting firewood was a job that seemed to go on forever. Just yesterday, I burned off the brush pile from this year's work, but I can't say the job is finished. It never really is. 

Having a woodstove and firewood stockpiled is a blessing, especially during these cold snaps. We watch the weather forecast and know from experience whether or not to get a fire burning. Our winters are a mixed bag, and typically we burn from mid-December to mid-March. When the temps are in the forties and above, the heat pump works fine. We just need to remain aware of what's happening outside. 

That type of awareness may seem like a lot of hassle to some people, but it's not. I grew up with it, and the Lord of the Manor developed it once he moved here twenty-eight years ago. He was of another mindset at first, but the winter of 1995-96 brought him around to my way of doing things. 

The country way. Long may it thrive!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, country living, rural lifestyle, woodstove, preparedness, winter weather, wind chill, a writer's life, cold fronts