Cleaning up the Woods

 Our woods are a tangle of thorny and invasive shrubs--wild roses, box elders, grey dogwood, blackberries, and autumn olives, with plenty of garlic mustard and poison ivy thrown in for good measure. Between the poison ivy, thorny plants, and the swarms of  mesquites this summer our woods were not a pleasant place to be. I didn't even make it out to pick the blackberries. The thought of being bitten, torn to shreds, and ending up with poison ivy was just too much.

The woods were logged a few years ago with no thought for the health or beauty of the woods. All the large healthy trees were cut down, leaving only weed trees and and a some twisted, unhealthy looking oaks and black cherries.  Because of the extra light that was let in when many trees where cut down, invasive plants are flourishing on the forest floor. The thick  carpet of garlic mustard chokes out native and beneficial plants and inhibits tree seeds from sprouting, making it difficult for the woods to regenerate on its own.

Before the Brush Hog went through the woods.  

We are slowly reclaiming our woods. This spring we took several days to through the woods and pull the garlic mustard. That will be a spring task for several more years, I am sure.  This weekend Terry and I spent many hours cleaning the brush and thorns out the woods by the tree house. We pulled out the big fallen logs and dead trees so we could brush hog and I scoured through the thorns and brush looking for young oak, hickory, and maple trees that will fill in the woods as they grow. These all got marked with yellow ribbon so that Terry could avoid running them over with the brush hog.

Terry ran the brush hog and I raked leaves, picked up limbs, and pulled hundreds of poison ivy vines. By the end of the day today, this woods was clean and brush free. After he brushed hogged, Terry went over the woods with the riding lawn mower to get the little shoots the brush hog had missed.

After the woods was brush hogged.

Last fall I planted about 100 daffodil bulbs around the tree house. Today I planted about 150 glory of the snow (chionodoxa) bulbs in the woods near it, as well as several dozen lily of the valley plants. I'm planning on adding more flowers to the woods each year. I am going to encourage native woodland flowers as well. This spring I found yellow, white, and purple violets, false lily of the valley, may apples, and sweet cicely in the this woods. I'd like to get spring beauties, hapaticas, trout lilies, blood root, and so many other native wild flowers growing here.

I went through the woods last winter and marked the few bushes and trees that are aren't invasive species. In the tree house woods we have a few wild high bush blueberries, a small Juneberry tree, two patches of wild hazelnuts, and two wild barberry bushes. I know the blueberries and Juneberry bloomed this spring, but I never made it back through the tangled mess to check to see if there were any berries. I did get a handful of hazelnuts from one of the hazelnut bushes, though.

Our goal is to make a beautiful healthy woods that is relaxing to walk through and can be managed as a firewood lot. I am hoping to encourage the blueberries, hazelnuts, and other edible and non invasive shrubs to help fill in the under story of the woods while we wait for the oak and hickory saplings to grow and fill out the empty spaces of the woods. We also need to figure out how to maintain a manageable blackberry patch--one that doesn't take over the entire woods.

The tree house got a a new set of stairs this fall and Terry and one of his friends have plans for enclosing the lower portion of the house and putting in a kitchen, large windows, and indoor plumbing. I guess we will no longer be be able to call it a tree house then, but it will be a more welcoming little guest house. (Click here for to see the interior of the tree house.)

Dream House

My brother spent three nights in the tree house when he visited me this week. As soon as he saw it proclaimed that it was his dream house when he was growing up. (Actually, I bet if you asked any of my siblings, most of us would say something similar.) Having grown up with six brothers and five sisters in a tiny house, having a 9x9 tree house all to one's self would have been almost too good to be true.

Rene is a little too tall for the door.

However, it is just right me a little person like me.

We both posed for a couple of photos. (Can you tell my favorite color is green?)

Tree House Retreat

I put the last bit of paint on the tree house today. I am completely loving this little retreat space. After the bed was set up I laid there for an hour watching the sun filter through the leaves. It was so incredibly peaceful. I can so see myself coming home from a long stressful day at work, and just going out there and relaxing. I still need a book shelf and to get some pictures on the walls, but I think the colors turned out well. One thing I will be looking for when I visit thrift shops is a quilt or something for the bed. The bed needs a coverlet that has earth tones to complement the greens. Plus, earth tones will hold up better to the dirty feet of two little boys who will hopefully enjoy using this as a play house when they visit.

I painted the insides of the window frames and the inside door a light yellow. It is amazing the difference a little paint makes. We still have the ugly pink carpet on the floor, but now that the house is painted and furnished, it doesn't bother me quite so much. Terry (and two of his carpenter/contractor friends), tell me it is possible to somehow force the building back into square so a wood or laminate floor could work. (When they described to me the what they wanted to do to get it back into square, I'm picturing cracked walls and roof--but I'm not a contractor or carpenter so what do I know?). But the point is sometime is the future, I may be able to have the floor I really want and to not have to settle for indoor/outdoor carpet.

My first guest will be staying in the tree house tomorrow. One of my brothers is coming to spend three days with us!

Interior Decorating 101

No, it is not the house, it's the tree house that I am getting ready to fix up. You might remember this from a photo I posted prior to closing our new property:


It will be the guest room/play house/retreat. Honestly, I'm sure once I start working nights (I think working the night shift is probably not too far away in my future), it will the place that I sleep during the day--just to be away from the noises of the house! This is my very first time that I am daring to take some paint and try working with it. I figure I will experiment with the tree house, then get to work on the real house.

Here are some inside pictures:

Those are windows from an RV, when we redo the house windows we will have to put real windows in!

Vaulted ceiling. (Sort of vaulted, anyway!) Yes, those walls are pink.

Ugly pink carpet has to go. My plan was to put in laminate wood flooring, but the building is not square (by a long shot, I am told), and Terry says that because of that, laminate flooring would not work. I'm am going to get a second opinion, but right now am thinking that I will have to settle for a decent looking indoor/outdoor carpet. This tree house was built for a little boy, believe it or not. All I can figure is that either the painter/carpet installer was color blind, or else was hoping for a girl.

Here are my starting colors.

The light green will be for the interior trim--around windows and door and on the baseboard. The dark green is exterior paint for the outside of the door. I am going to start with painting the walls white, since we have a lot of white paint, but would like to paint at least one wall another color. I very much open to ideas! I have never painted any thing any color but white. I want this to have a light airy natural woodsy feeling. A sunny yellow comes to mind or a spring green. Or would that be too much green?

The tree house once it is is furnished and decorated will have a single bed, a book shelf with nature books and some classic children and adult books, some games, a few toys. I'm going to frame some of my more woodsy photos for the walls. I want it to be child friendly, but classy enough for the adult who still has enough child in him or her to want to stay in guest tree house. It has electric and is insulated, so it won't be completely roughing it.

If you were to come visit me and were to stay in this house, what would you like to see in it (in keeping with my theme, of course!)? I'm sure we can get it hooked up with internet. Terry is good at that sort of thing.

The woods behind the tree house.

Nemo trying out the slide escape. He decided it was too scary to slide down and jumped down instead.
I guess he realized the front stairs really aren't in the greatest shape, and avoided them all together. That is something we will have to do something about sooner then later.