Into the Woods: Paths

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."  
-Proverbs 3:5-6

We've been busy in the weeks since our woods were cleared of dead trees and unwanted bushes and brambles.  Our latest project has been to spread the mound of wood chips along the paths in our woods....

Into the Woods: Cleaning Up the Mess

"Just as our only recourse to falling down is getting up, our only recourse to hurting others is to acknowledge what we've done and clean up the mess.  This is known as making amends, a simple yet enormous act of integrity that restores trust, and trust, afterall, is the soil that holds the roots of humankind." --Mark Nepo

....Because if you don't, this is what your life will eventually look like.....

Into the Woods: Brambles

Bramble:  a prickly scrambling wild shrub of the rose family

This is one of our brambles in our woods that we did not have cleared because it provides a screen from the road behind it....

Into the Woods: Stumps

Stump:   the small projecting remnant of something that has been cut or broken off or worn away

Into the Woods: Petrified Trees

"When we obey the feelings of hesitation and separation more powerfully than those of love, we start to experience numbness and depression.  This is when we start to live like statues, believing that all we can do is watch."

This made me think of several trees in our woods....

Into the Woods: Vines

We have a lot of English ivy in our woods.   It looks like we have an evergreen forest in the winter because of all the ivy climbing up the trees.  With our woods clean-up in full swing we've been going through and cutting and pulling off the ivy and other vines where we can....

Into the Woods

After living on this plot of ground for 32 years we are finally able to do something about our patch of woods!  Over the decades the 40-foot pitch pine trees have been dying off one by one....