Social Distancing Week 3

I've been saying that walks and fresh air are saving my life. We had our share of rainy, gray days this week, but mixed in we had enough opportunities to takes walks and play outside to keep us sane.

Josiah still says he is perfectly happy to be at home. Aliza was only on the floor bemoaning the state of her life once so I'll call that a pretty good quarantine week!

A special box arrived in mail from a friend full of snacks. I've never seen such a large bag of swedish fish and sour patch kids!

The car is thoroughly cleaned out and vacuumed. Anna was my helper for that project. She loved using the shop vac. She found it very satisfying to suck up all the dirt and debris. I found it very satisfying to watch her use the shop vac! While that was happening, Aliza was mowing the grass!

Yesterday I went outside intending to pick up a few sticks and start working on the flowerbed. Instead, I started a fire to burn sticks, convinced Jeremy to start a big fire and started cleaning out an area of the yard that was overtaken by brush. I didn't intend to go as far as I did, but I got very motivated and just kept on going.

I called it Project Take Back the Land. Many years ago (I'm thinking 10, but I don't know for sure) we had a bunch of pine trees that we leaning over and one day Jeremy cut them down. There were 6 to be exact--I found the stumps. For some (unremembered) reason the limbs and branches did not get completely cleaned up. And over the years those branches and limbs got covered up with pine needles, leaves and vines, leaving an area that looks like the before pictures. As I was doing this project I kept thinking, "Heslop, you are never again cutting down trees and not cleaning it up completely!" (I'm going on the assumption that I was pregnant or had babies when this happened, therefore, making it impossible for me to have finished cleaning it up! lol.)

My method was to start at the edge picking up what branches I could. Then I took the lawnmower and slowly mowed down strips until the could see more branches to pick up.

It's actually the perfect kind of project for me because I love seeing progress. And I can keep at a very monotonous kind of work when I'm making progress. Also, when there is literally no where else to be, you might as well take a day to be outside and work hard!

While I was doing this, Jeremy kept the big fire going. He just about cleared out our piles of brush. The children helped for a few hours. Isaiah stayed out the longest in the afternoon. He kept us a constant chatter. Jeremy told me some pretty funny conversation that he and Isaiah had.