All the news...

It is beastly hot. Hot, hot, hot. It's not 100 degrees (it's only in the mid-90s) but when the sun hits your skin it feels like it's being concentrated by a magnifying glass. It burns on contact. It's this hot in DC every summer; the difference between there and here is that in DC I had the sense to stay inside out of the heat. Here, we're working like dogs right out in it.

Clearing continues, sporadically. It rained so much last week and there was so much mud as a result that we couldn't maneuver truck and trailer into locations that were easy to reach with arms or barrows full of cut trees, bushes and weeds. So this entire week until today, we've been working on the garden shed. We decided today, since it's been dry the entire week, to get back to clearing. After a false start caused by Steve spending an hour trying to figure out how to take the string-trimmer attachment off the weed whacker and put the saw blade on, we tackled the back yard. The back yard really is the most important space on the entire 2.5 acres--it's what gives the water view we paid for, when it's cleared. And those are the operative words: when it's cleared. We purchased the land in February, after last season's growth had died back and obviously before any new growth could take place. That's how we know there's a view...by the looks of things now, you'd never guess it. After we clear the land, we'll keep new growth under control with a mower. (See below) We'll still have several yards of actual waterfront to clear as well, but that will have to wait until winter, when the water has receded and we can walk there. Little by little....

The big news is that we found a riding mower! We've been looking since we got here, waiting for prices to fall on the models on which we had narrowed our search. We finally found one at a Lowe's all the way up in Virginia Beach (yes, that's another state), and they won't deliver it to our "home" store in Elizabeth City. So tomorrow after the clearing work, we'll empty the trailer of the yard waste and then borrow it and the truck that pulls it from our neighbor and go get it our wet and smelly selves. Having a mower finally means we can stay ahead of re-growth in all the areas we've worked so hard to clear, and we won't have to do it again. In our brave new life down here, this is a red letter day!