Home at Citra - Cleaning the yard

We do have a beautiful lot in Citra that serves as our home base when we are between volunteer gigs and traveling.  Citra is still rural with a wonderful crew at the Post Office who seem to know everything! 

Our road

The cats are thrilled when we go 'home' because they can be off leash... free to climb trees, catch frogs, and ramble through the brush.  And, believe me there is still plenty of brush in Citra.

"How I love being in Citra",
purrs kitty Anna

 Now, our stops are usually short and the time is spent bush wacking the yard.  The location happens to be on a dead-end road that ends at a creek that sometimes has water.  Water and scrub mean snakes and this trip was no exception:  black racer, striped rat snake, and a scarlet snake.  None of whom waited around for my camera!

Swamp at the end of the road
Some years it is dry...
but not recently

Trees seem to grow like weeds
Bill chains saws these to stumps

We have two adjacent lots in Citra.  The lower lot is under-brushed and mostly cleared of unwanted trees, finally.  However, the marsh area is a fertile habitat for saplings which need constant manicure.  Along with the brier patches, smilax (green brier), Virginia creeper, and now poison ivy.  The upper lot is still overgrown but slowly coming into compliance.

The before picture!

Success!  We cleared this area of debris

Just a few more big vines in this area

Citra is known for lovely old oaks but old oaks do not stand forever and in 2014 we lost a big tree during a storm.  The tree fell on another oak and needed to be removed before it forced the standing oak down.  

Base of a mighty oak

Bill found a neighbor with a bucket truck in late fall 2014 and had the tree cut into  manageable sections.  But the job is far from complete so each trip he spends some time either splitting logs or cutting them into smaller chunks.

Bringing the tree to fire size

Slowly the trees become firewood

Normally I can be found with the clippers, sheers, loppers, rake, and shovel.  But sometimes I get to play with the chain saw.  My preference, smaller logs.  Must admit, the following photo was a photo-op and not a working shot.

Yes, this was a posed picture
But I do use the chainsaw

Well, back to work on the vines where... you are never certain what you will find.

Beautiful stripped racer
wandering about.