Heath's newest project

Last year when we started building the house, we concentrated on the actual house itself and not so much the area around it. Don't get me wrong, we had an idea of what we wanted to do with the yard, the drive and such, but our time and energy was mostly focused toward the house.

As the house came to completion, we started the will-it-ever-end process of trying to establish a yard with grass. It took months to dry out, finish the dirt work, sow seed, and see anything green in color. After the yard, we worked on some landscaping, retaining walls, the concrete pad, etc.

All this took months, and throughout those months, we both had one thing in the back of our minds -- the river. Most people that come to the house don't even get to see the river, especially during the warm months. It's quite a ways down the hill from our backyard, and in the summer, it's hardly visible through the leaves and undergrowth. But we've always had it in mind. We want to be able to walk down to the river if we want. We'd love to be able to put in our kayak from our backyard, and, even though we are not great fishermen at all, we'd love to be able to just enjoy the river.

Heath made some great strides toward starting this process last week. He was fortunate enough to have two four-day weekends, and during that time, he really started crossing some things off his to-do list.

Here's the view from our backyard now. Since the leaves are off the trees, you can see the farm across the river, including their barns. The boys loved watching the combine working there last fall, and throughout the past months, we've been able to watch turkeys in the field, too. 

If you walk to the edge of our yard, you can see the Barren River. It's a pretty steep trip down the hill, but it was a nice afternoon, so Heath and I pulled on our boots and hiked down while the boys were napping.

While I had been visiting a friend for a playdate with our boys, Heath had started to cut some switch-backs down the hill to the water. In my opinion, just walking straight down seemed like a better idea, but I can see where Heath liked a nice trail. Here he is at the river pondering his next steps. (Yes, the coffee goes everywhere.)

There's a lot of "sticky bushes" (as Cash calls them) that need to be cut and pulled out of the way. As of right now, getting to the actual water is impossible. It's really grown up down there. The water was moving fast that day, I'm guessing because of the rain and the water coming from the lake.

There was a cleared spot, though, at the edge. Heath is hoping that it will be a fun place to bring the boys to fish, throw rocks, and maybe even camp. We made our way back up the hill (breathing very heavily and knowing I'd be sore in the morning!) thankful for such a fun place to raise our boys. Plenty of room to run around and explore ...