My Stars Aligned!!

It has been many, many years since I've had so much good occur in one afternoon! I've wanted a nice campsite out back for many years. I have my trails and peaceful places out back, but those have changed over the years. When we got here in '07, I had a few trails around hundreds of sunflowers and saplings, then the boys started paying attention to where I was going and they started clearing more trails and making more open spaces. A lot of clearing finally started happening in 2010-2011. They had a really nice open area and a nice trail down the "island." I didn't know they were calling it that... I found that out later! They acquired an old dryer drum and had themselves a great spot for campfire cookouts. In fact, two of our best family times occurred right before the flood in the Spring of 2011. They had been working really hard getting things cleared and knocked down, and then invited everyone to a party that we had very little food to sustain! Morgan called everyone back and had found they had enough odds and ends to hold the cookouts, so we did! We have never regretted that. It took us a whole year to rebuild and come back after the flood, but then we knew how important the campsite would be. Michael works for a landscaping company that came out and totally reconfigured our land so that we have berms and proper drainage to keep us a bit drier through the wet seasons. What a huge blessing that has been! There was a 22 year old kid that loved nothing more than moving dirt, so he and Mat got the campsite exactly the way we wanted it! That's when definitions came into play and we started calling it The Point, since it's not really an island!

Anyway, after the flood, we continued to lose trees that had just been too waterlogged to continue. The worst one just came out this spring. It was absolutely huge and had broken at the top and was just hanging there. Again, some guys that loved nothing more than taking down trees were coming by and needed my dad to weld a door on their excavator. They took out the big tree, but they had to take out about 7 smaller trees around it to get to it. That's when I lost my really great main trail. I also lost my only redbud to the flood, so my guys bought me three new redbuds for Mother's Day to get my trails started again. This sure has been the spring and summer for planting new trees! We planted more than 24 trees around the property and have hardly had to water them at all.  

So back to the campsite: Mom found some landscaping blocks for 40 cents each and was starting a firepit in her yard. It was a little painful that her dream was coming true so much faster than mine, but I suppose that's the reward after your kids aren't home anymore! But after she got hers done, she sent Mat after the rest of the blocks for my birthday. There were 138 left! When he picked them up, someone was there with a skid loader and they just picked up the whole shebang and loaded it into his truck! And here's where my stars really aligned: About 10 minutes after I got home, Anthony and Kolton stopped by and Mat asked them if they would come help unload them. I followed them out there and we all decided that we'd just arrange them as we went instead of piling and rearranging later. We got them the way I thought I wanted them, and then Mat asked them if they'd be willing to go get a load of sand by a farm on the river to fill in between the blocks. While they were gone, I got the garden pavers that we've been making every year at family camp and arranged them within the bricks. As the boys got to the sand piles, they met up with the owner and his scoop! He just scooped them a load of sand and dropped it right in the back of Mat's truck! While they were gone, my dad showed up with his chainsaw to start taking care of all the big branches of the downed tree that we've been mowing around all summer. When the guys got back with the sand, Morgan and Kolton helped me with that, and Mat and Anthony helped with the wood. It was dark by the time we were all done, and I was certainly sore, but I am just so pleased with the way things are going! We still need one big bonfire to take care of the huge brush pile, but that's supposed to happen soon.  

Love my family, love my land!!