Our Land

This post has been a long time coming....

In April we bought some land. We've been looking for some for a long, long time.

Ever since we moved to Idaho, I haven't felt like there was a place that I could go where I could just relax. There are places I love, but you have to time it right(like the swimming hole in the middle of the winter) to avoid other people. Then when you're there, you're always worried about other people showing up and bothering you. That kind of thing is not for me.

Soo, we found our own little retreat. Of course mountain cabin land and beautiful lake-front or river-front property are totally beyond our budget. So we settled for country-land wilderness.

We hope to build a house there someday, but for now we are just enjoying visits to a bit of peace and quiet.

This piece of land as far as we know has never been cultivated. It is truly wild. It is full of Russian Olive Trees(dead and alive), Cottonwoods, Willow trees, and Slippery Elms. We also found a few wild Mulberry trees, and who knows what else there is to find. :)
There are tons of different birds, including orioles, owls, quails, and pheasants. Wild life includes deer, little cotton-tail rabbits, beaver, foxes, spiders in every variety :) and other small creatures.

Our land is certainly not for everyone. I think many, or even most people would probably not be able to recognize it's very wild untamed beauty, but that's fine by me. We have no plans to develop it, other than perhaps a small pasture and an even smaller(mow in 20 minutes) lawn. (..and Dad, I have no intention of EVER letting my children get anywhere near the creek(alone) until they are at least 20 years old and have proved they can swim underwater backwards across the English Channel in the winter. So please don't worry.)

About 3 acres of the land is deeply wooded, with a large creek bordering one side. We spent a few days with an ax, hand saw and chainsaw cutting a path through the trees. Allowing us to do a little exploring.

On the upper-part of our land, where we intend to put our future house, we groomed 20 plus trees, so they would be less bush-like and more healthy. We also removed MANY baby Russian Olives Trees. That were trying to take over everything. In several pictures, you will notice our large slash piles. I guess, I should've taken pictures before we started, but here we go........

 Hmm don't know why this one is out of focus. I was probably holding Emma. The lane on the right is a private drive, it leads to one other house and goes along the west end of our property. The car you can see in the background, is an older BMW, it's pretty much stripped on the inside and filled with mice. I bequeathed it to Natalie on her 16th birthday. Hopefully, it will be hauled off before then. :) If you look close, you can see some of  the trees we groomed on the right by the fence.

 Large slash pile and more groomed trees. The green is from the irrigation run-off from an adjoining field. In the spring, it is ALL green.

 The slash piles are filled with rabbits and quail and probably a few other things.

 I think this is a picture of one of my favorite trees. It was previously a bush.

 Ellie looking very much like her cousin Matt in this picture.

 This is where the woody part of our property begins.

 The kids love to play here and gather sticks and stones and hurt their bones. They also make endless fire pits(no real fires Dad), and forts.

I think I changed the settings on my camera to take the close up picture of the bug and forgot to change them back. Sorry about the lack of focus.

 Heading down our car trail down to the bottom section of our land.

 The beaver are down a little hidden trail behind this old slash pile. It's too overgrown right now, to go down there. It's actually my favorite part of the land. The water is shallow and you can wade and there is(was) places you can fish. (hehe, my shadow looks like a ghost)

 

 Sorry, it was getting dark and it's even darker in the trees. The camera flash washes out all the colors.

 Spoooooky! You can see where we broke off dead branches to climb through.

 This is the red tree along the path that marks the path to our camping site. Which we (sortof) cleared out.

 Our campsite.

 Dead vines. A lot of it is nightshade and wild roses.

 Tons of spearmint, this area smells so good.

 There is a little waterfall here, where two sections of the creek become one. It's beautiful in the spring and winter, but almost impossible to get to in the summer.

 ...but aren't they pretty? :) :)

 I scared out a deer while taking photos. It's running from me. See it's backside in the middle of the blurry picture.

I think there is a rabbit in this picture, but it's hopeless to find.  There are beautiful hills and bluffs all around.