Not much sunshine today, but it was pretty mild. A good day for working outside. Not that I worked outside, but Fred did. He and our neighbor, Paul, finished up taking out the tamarack trees next to the road. It's very strange now to look out and see lights on the other side of the pond. I suppose I might have been able to do that without losing the trees once their needles had fallen, but still, there was a really tall wall down there and I was feeling hemmed in.

We didn't ask Paul to take the brush away. Fred dragged them down to his brush pile just off the edge of the lawn. There is a huge pile (see picture) that he's added to over the years. Each winter it packs down and decomposes a little more, but we think it makes good cover for small animals - partridges and rabbits in particular.

After Paul left with his last load of wood, I walked down to see the finished job - the stumps along the road and the brush pile. It sure is different. I was sorry to see the tamaracks go, but while I was looking at the brush pile I realized we have several more growing up down below the lawn where we had it cut off a few years ago. Once the snow comes, we'll get down in there (on snowshoes) to see what else is growing. We planted some white pines a few years ago and haven't check on them lately. Also there should be some maples coming along. I think we've planted more trees than we've cut - and that's ok, but I have to stop planting things close to the house that will grow up and cut off my view. We kid about that - the town officers will deny it, but we do get taxed more if we have a view. However, when the trees grow up and cut off the view, our taxes do not go down. I actually asked about that once and the reply was that the view was still there, even if I couldn't see it. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, so I'll keep quiet and pay the darned taxes.

They are repaving along Route 2 between West Danville towards Marshfield. I don't know

if they are going all the way to the new road by Goodrich's, but I expect they will. I thought they might be just patching, but Fred said today it looked like they were putting on a new surface. That's good for making it smoother and getting rid of the potholes, but it can be slippery when that first snowfall comes. Every year we have to pay attention and remember how to drive in winter conditions again. We'll have our winter tires put on in a few more weeks and then I'll feel a little more secure.

We noticed today that even though we haven't seen any wildlife on our game camera, all the apples have been cleaned up under our two trees. There are still apples on the crab tree, and the turkeys and squirrels will enjoy them during the winter. Partridges like them, too. Not much goes to waste - by spring the crab tree will be bare of apples and ready to go again.

Here are before and after pictures of our tamaracks. The pictures were taken from opposite directions, so the first one is looking West towards our mailbox with the tamaracks on the right and the next picture is looking east along the line that was once a solid bank of tamaracks. All that's left at the edge of our lawn are the lupines that grow there each spring. At least we'll be able to see them better next spring!