Well, this was a SURPRISE view...

We were so enthralled with the river views, so imagine our surprise to turn around and find a never before seen view of the back of the house.
It was certainly a shock, but a very nice one!

We never realized that while clearing out all the dead wood and brush to open the view of the St. Regis River, that we were also creating a new view of the back of the house. A view (I must add) that we absolutely love!

Welcome to Fall on "our" River...

We moved into the back yard...

Well, we've told you all that we live on the river, thing was you mostly couldn't see it for all the dead wood between the house and cliff.
Rick just started taking down all the dead wood with the chain saw, lots of dead branches that were just blocking the view.

This is now the "new view" off the back deck...

We did it a little at a time. We didn't want to take down any good trees. So he chained and dragged and then walked back to the house to see the results.
We mostly did lots of branch trimming and the rest was just hauling the dead stuff away.

And our grass grew...

We really wanted to go into fall and winter without all the mud.
Next spring we'll be landscaping the entire front with shrubs and flowers. We'll re-seed the bare spots then. But this makes us feel really good about bringing less mud and dirt into the house. We may know where to step, but the dogs actually go looking for the mud puddles. Go figure...Eh?

Another project...

This door kept bugging me every time I saw it...One could say I should have been seeing "red" and wasn't...
Finally I took a few hours and painted it. Boy...was I glad to cross this off the "to-do" list.

Wood for the wood shed...

All the wood from Schrader Logging that had been drying in the meadow needed to come up closer to the house.

During construction this was our tool shed. Two weeks ago it got emptied of all tools and converted into a wood shed. We hope next spring/summer to actually build a real wood shed closer to the house, but this is going to work just fine for this season.

We filled it with all the wood...Now we pray we have enough!

My trip to the Catskills...

We sat with my Dad and watched the birds. They didn't mind people!
This was the view out our motel window....

This is my step-brother's house. He built it himself! Nights, weekends, vacations (over a period of 4-5 years) he and his wife did 99% themselves.
I've been hearing about this house for years and I finally got to see it for myself. It's totally impressive....and very very beautiful!