Spring's in the Air

One usually thinks of the countryside as being peaceful and quiet but when spring returns, it is anything but quiet and not just here in the End of the Rainbow Valley.

Of course, there's the welcomed songs of the birds. And the honking of the returning sandhill cranes as they fly overhead but there's a manmade sound that monopolizes the air space and that's the sound of the chainsaw.

Apple wood

It's clean up time. Time to start removing deadwood, brush and most importantly, working on rebuilding the woodpile for next winter already. 

Although Natureman's still recuperating from the cold/ cough of the century as I've named it, he had to take advantage of the mild 60 degree day to tackle the apple trees where disease has attacked another one of the 30 year old trees. I could call him the Butcher of the End of the Rainbow Valley as the hillside's view opened up with his afternoon of chainsaw work. But I know it's necessary to remove the diseased wood lest the other trees become infected.

So trip after trip, he carted the cut branches down to the campsite area where they will be burned. Normally I would have been helping him cart it yet my body had insisted on a 3 hour nap.  Yep, I had slept through all that chainsaw buzzing ( I told you that cough was bad.)

When Natureman called it a day and sat enjoying his afternoon beer with me on the porch swing, he remarked about feeling tired. Ya think? Both of us smiled, admiring the spring day and feeling grateful winter is almost behind us...