Getting the mower ready

 I pulled the deck off the tractor last night when I got home from work. Heather helped me set it up on the sawhorses to make it easier to work on.

 All the normal deck maintenance items done: cleaned and painted, spindles greased and blades were also sharpened. It will only look nice until the first time I use it.

We set the deck back down and I put it back on the tractor. At the moment, the battery is charging. It had gotten pretty low sitting all winter.

More fence work

 We were able to get the back corner straightened up and braced today by digging out the outside of the post and winching it back upright.

 The old concrete collar was a little deeper than I remember it being.

 We had a rough time with this one. We could wiggle it, but were afraid of snapping it off like we did to the one in the back part of the fence.

 Then I got the notches cut for the bracer post.

 The corner post is a little rough on the outside and that makes it a bit harder to cut neatly, but we managed to get it cut.

The bracers are all nailed in. Time to clean up and re-attach the wire.

Tree removal

 This twin trunk locust tree had cracked and was pushing the Warner's fence. Heather and I went over this morning to take it down. Jim was also there to help. We pulled the tops over and got them cut off before I started on the trunks.

 Both sides of the trunk were right up against the fence, making it a bit more difficult, but we got them cut off. It might have been one side at a time, but still progress.

 Both sides removed and the fence stood up straight(er).

As expected, we had an audience for the whole procedure. They weren't too fond of all the noise the saw made, though.

Winter came early this year

 Last night's rain turned to snow before it all ended. We got about 2" by the time it quit.

It will probably be gone in a day or two because the ground isn't frozen yet, but the air temperatures won't be melting it. It didn't go above freezing today.

First frost of the season

 It's a bit early this year, but we got our first frost last night.

 It got the whole area here between the hills.

I think I will wait for it to melt off before I go anywhere today.

Lake time for the guys

 Allen and I headed for Greyson Lake this morning. We drove all the way there in the rain, but it stopped when we arrived at the launch. We did get drizzled on, but then it cleared out and was sunny.

 We both caught a few fish, but nothing big enough to bring home for dinner. We still had fun.

 We went a little farther down the lake and found this. It is hard to see, but the top half is an overhang over the lake. It goes back about 40-50 feet. Very cool looking.

We also found this cave along the banks. Allen got up to the mouth, but didn't go inside. We only had flip-flops on and there was a lot of rocks and brush to walk through to get to the back.

Burn pile gone

 I lit up the "new" burn pile this morning. This is all the limbs and debris from the maple branch that came down in the pasture a while back.

 I picked a spot in the pasture that the horses weren't eating from and stacked all the stuff there because I didn't feel like hauling everything over to the old burn pile.

 It burned down nicely. This is after about an hour or so, lots of coals to make sure it will keep going.

 By afternoon, there were only the big chunks left. I moved them all into a pile near the center so they could keep going.

Leaning on the fencepost is the remaining part of the branch with the trunk visible behind it. The last branch will get cut off when I finish with the big piece, leaving just an enormous stump.