A Transformation

As expected, the land was completely cleared when we arrived this morning, but it was still a surprise to see.  The landscape has completely changed as you come around the curve in the road towards the property.

Looking East from near the SW corner . . .

Looking NE from near the SW corner . . .

Looking North from near the SW corner . . .

The operator was already working when we got there.  He was trying to move the rocks and do a rough grate of the land.  He said he was having a hard time moving a lot of the rocks because they were too big and deep.  Some were so large they were actually lifting up the 25 ton bulldozer when he tried to dig them out.  Now that they were more visible, the size and number of large rocks was a bit surprising.  Check out this one below which is about 15′ long.

We told him just to move what he could.  The rest can be moved when excavation starts for the house.  He had already piled some in the back corner like we asked and even those were quite large.  This curved one below is pretty neat and I’ll think we’ll have to find a use for it.

At our current house, the dirt is all clay and it’s a mess to work with or grow anything in.  The new land is covered with actual dirt.  We’ve been told by the neighbor’s that there used to be cows on the land for years and everything grows well around there.  Now that the land is cleared and my roses are going dormant, I’m contemplating transplanting them to one of the back corners out there, then moving them to a permanent location once the new house is done.  Meanwhile, the operator mentioned that he hadn’t seen any snakes out there which surprised him.  While I was walking around taking pictures, I stepped on something I thought was a plant.  Right as I put my foot down, I realized it was a snake.  I let out a scream, but David was too far away to hear over the sound of the dozer.  I thought it was dead because it didn’t move, but when I showed it to David a couple minutes later, it was slithering away.  He wasn’t very big around, but he was at least 2′ long.

David has seen a couple of snakes out there, but this was the first one I had seen.  We are going to have to keep an eye on the rock piles because they will great places for them to hide.  The operator also found a yellow jacket nest under a rock.  He said he was lucky the bulldozer has a cab.  We need to get that taken care of before we forget that it’s there or the kid comes across it.  Below is a gallery with all the pictures from this morning.  I tried to put them in order going clockwise around the property, starting in the SW corner.  Click on one of the small thumbnails to get to the gallery page where you can click thru all the images at full size (just use the arrows on either side of the pictures).