SUDDENLY A FOREST

So yesterday, I posted HERE about hiring out some land clearing and we suddenly had a yard.  Now we suddenly have a small forest!  

When the man came out and quoted us, I showed him several areas but the one behind the house was the first one we were going to do and the most important.  What we didn't realize (or understand) is that the price he quoted was for the DAY...as much as he could do and whatever we wanted them to do.  Stump grinding, tree trimming, brush clearing, whatever...we just had to point where!

So about halfway through the day, he came to me and said "we're almost done, do you want me to work on another part now?"  UM, YEAH!  This is why we didn't do any more wood chipping.  If we had, he would have had to stop and do that in between clearing and since we paid for work to be done, it made no sense to pay for wood chipping when we could get more cleared and then just burn it ourselves.  Without further ado, here is the other section:

Before:

Two major things in this photo actually.  The mess of trees and brush of course in the background and the stump in about the middle of the foreground.  It was waaaay too big to get rid of (and believe, me we tried everything) and since they had a stump grinder, we pointed, ha.   

After:

This is it when they were done (on the left side is the debris they put aside for a burn pile).  The stump is also gone (the dirt spot in the middle).

Before:

A closeup of the job and once again, just brush and vines and thorns and dead branches, way more than we could safely tackle ourselves.  

After: 

Now a more open area.  They left the trees that were good to leave and didn't have dead or dying limbs.  There is a stump left there, a large mesquite stump, because they ran out of time when they got to that.  It was really more about having them do as much as they possibly could before the time that the money we paid for, ran out, ha.  

Here is a different angle.  Wherever you see brown, that was where the brush and stuff came to.  I could mow right up to the edge of it, where the green is but I couldn't get any closer.

We really like how this part turned out too.  We think it will be a nice, woodland type area.  So much of the property has only mesquite trees and random other trees growing far apart from each other with not many that are grouped together like this.  Now it looks like an area you might see 'in the woods'.  It's the closest thing we have to a forest, at this point anyway.  With 11 acres, there are some other possible spots that we'll get to someday but for now, this is going to be fun to work on. 

I'll mow over it when it dries out (rain expected this week) so it's cleaned up a bit more.  It's shaded most of the time so we are thinking it will have to be types of plants that do best in those conditions.  We're not sure what else would be nice here...a seating area perhaps?  Having never had a spot like this, we'll have to think about it.  It might not get on this years 'list', but perhaps I can start planting some stuff this Spring.