A disappointment...followed by some excitement!

Well, it seems that I have hit a bit of a roadblock in the construction of the mini arena. Darn it! I hate roadblocks! I like to pre-plan and have everything go according to my plan. No deviation. I mean, that's totally realistic, right?! ;)

I don't think this is a major roadblock, it just means I may have to wait a little bit longer 'till I'm able to see my plan come to fruition.

Here's the deal. We're having some excavation done around our property...mostly gettting some brush cleared in order to create some extra pasture area. Also, we need to have our "yard" scraped so that I can put down sod...right now, it's just growing a lovely mixture of pasture grass and weeds. Whatever came up on it's own after our house was completed and the excavation was done at that time. I've just been mowing it to keep in somewhat under control. But that's been two years ago now, so it's time to get this yard buttoned up (before & after pics will be posted as it progresses...hopefully soon...gotta git 'r dun!)

Anyway, my plan was to have these excavators also work on the arena area. I've been workin' hard, putting boards up for a retaining wall, since I knew we would need to bring in some fill. Well, the first time I went over everything with our excavator, the boards weren't in place yet, so it was hard for him to tell exactly how much fill was going to be needed. Now that they're installed, it's clear to see that it's gonna need quite a bit! You can see here just how much.

The final grade of the footing will be probably about 6 inches from the top of the top board.

This particular guy specializes mostly in the brush clearing and does not have the proper equipment to get this area built up and compacted properly. He did say he could give me a referral, so that's cool, but I'm bummed 'cause I have a feeling it's gonna be a bit more pricey than I had anticipated after getting his initial quote! Although, it's probably gonna be pretty close to what I was guestimating in my own mind before meeting with him. Either way, I'm regrouping now. I hate regrouping. ;)

Oh, well I'm sure it will all work out!

The "excitement" part was coming home today to see the day one progress on the brush clearing! Here's a before pic of our tree line...

And here's a couple of pics from today! Not a way huge difference, but I'm totally excited to see how it looks when it's all done!

Furthermore, today is the first day in a long time that I've dared to venture into our woods by myself. You see, I got a little "lost" one time and it was absoutely terrifying for me. It's really quite ridiculous, because I had not even strayed that far from my trail, but at the time we hadn't done any clearing...it was before our house was even built. Plus it was August and everything was full of leaves, making it all that much harder to see where I was going.

I was up at the property by myself and decided that I wanted to trek back to get some pictures of our creek. I'd been back there before with my hubby and thought that I could surely find my way around no problem. Well, I forgot to leave myself a Captain Crunch trail and about 20 minutes into my adventure I realized that I was totally turned around. Uh-oh. To make matters worse, it was nearing 8:00 and the woods were starting to get a little dim. Crap. I didn't know what to do. I called the only neighbor I knew at the time to see if someone might be able to come yell at me from the tree line. No answer. Oh, man...now what?

The woods got darker & darker and I got more & more panicked. Finally, I realized that my only hope was to send up a "get me outta here!" prayer. Well, God must have a soft spot for directionally challenged ding dongs 'cause right after my plea of desperation I decided to just walk forward, instead of from right to left. Pretty soon, I saw a familiar cedar tree and realized that I was really not far off of my trail. Unfortunately for me, the path I took back was full of nettles and sticker bushes. And I was in shorts and crocs. Oh my goodness...what kind of kuntry gal am I?

By the way, here's a pic of about where I was when I got "lost". Keep in mind that at that time my surroundings were much more dense. Still...what a sorry excuse for a kuntry gal!

So, you can imagine my excitement today when I realized that I could hike down to the creek and keep my house in sight the whole time! Sweet! Here are some pics I took on this adventure. I absoutely can't wait to blaze some trails through here with Caspian!

A fern springing to life...a true indication of spring time!

Not to get all "twi-hard" on you guys, but doesn't this totally look like a scene from Twilight? It's like a whole different world back there! Maybe they'd be interested in using my woods for filming! Hmmm....might have to have my agent contact Summit about that.

Okay, now it's sights like this that makes me question why man even tries to replicate Mother Nature's creations. We're never gonna live up to her skills!

I'm totally guilty of it, though. Here's my "replica".

I totally dig having a waterfall and pond in the backyard (or makeshift backyard right now), but it's ironic to me that I built this when I have a "real" one just a few hundred feet away! And the real one puts mine to shame! But, the real one doesn't have goldfish! Acutally this one doesn't yet either. But it will! Like everything else around here, it's a work in progress. ;) Once it's done (if ever!) I'm gonna post a "how to" with pics. Just in case anyone else wants to be a Mother Nature copy cat like me. :)