My son, Forrest, is home for only 3 weeks this summer. He's spending the rest of the summer in Missoula working with the Dept. of Agriculture traveling around Montana cataloging insects. Part of the payment for tuition at University of Montana was clearing this stand of mangled wire fence, brush and trees into a cleared. Along with his girlfriend, Kim, (also going to UM), they worked side by side in rain, heat and humidity pulling poison ivy out and hauling 8 truckloads of brush away.
This is what it looked like after they had cleared the mess away. So much better. But the old fence and brush worked well while the boys were growing up as it kept their baseballs, softballs, lacrosse balls, volleyballs, and frisbees from going into the road.
Tools of the trade.
But we did cheat a bit though and rented this awesome auger to dig the holes. It grinded through root and shale and I believe we'll never dig a hole by hand again! Houston had to try it out and they had the holes done in just 2 hours.
Here are the two proud workers standing in front of their newly completed fence. Bravo!
After the last rail was pounded into place, we packed a lunch and headed up to Sugarloaf Mountain for a celebratory picnic and hike. As soon as we took off though, it began to drizzle, then rain.
We decided to just eat under the old wood pavilion up there, check out Devil's Kitchen, and come back later when it's not raining (August?)
The mountain laurels are in bloom now, although just past their peak. Sugarloaf is abundant with them and they are truly lovely.
This pic is a bit fuzzy but the undersides of the flowers are really unusual.
They look more like something that you'd find under the sea.
Forrest just chillin' on the rocks, happy not to be working on that fence any more!
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