And So We Began....

Since the land had been left to its own for over 30 years and was extremely fertile ground from so many years of farming the white pine had invaded in force. Although when we went to get our first burn permit, we found that the name of the hill that the land was located atop was Oak Hill, the oaks were largely the line trees with some saplings fighting for a small share of sunlight greedily monopolized by the pines. My Uncle Bob was so surprised that I did not know it was Oak Hill but I only remember Grandpa saying, "Let's go to the field." The first project was to bust up the cement at the end of the rudimentary driveway so that we could even access the land. As Eric broke it up, he decided to explore his "artsy side" and arranged the broken pieces into a "stone" wall bordering either side of the drive. It looked really great and he was very proud of himself for such a creation. While he worked on that, I started the very long process of clearing the field. The white pines were a worthy adversary, growing thick with dead interwoven branches clear to the ground. We battled for the entire winter of 2003-2004 and well into the late fall of 2004.