May 22, 2018

Landscaping Our Cabin Property Part 1

Our tiny 576 square foot cabin in McCall, Idaho is situated on a flat corner quarter acre lot just inside the city limits. One of the things that made us fall in love with our place is that the property seemed much larger than it is because the cabin takes up so little of it. Also, when we walked all around it we felt like we were in the middle of a forest because there were so many trees.

 When we bought our cabin in the fall of 2016, the sales listing described the landscaping as "natural." During the inspection, as I walked around taking detailed photos of the property, it dawned on me that by "natural" they actually meant there was no landscaping at all. In fact, it was plain that, like our little cabin, the land had been sorely neglected for a long, long time.

As you know, my husband and I are not strangers to home and garden renovation. However, we'd never tackled a landscaping project of this magnitude! That day I counted over seventy large evergreen conifer trees on our property, many of which looked sick and in need of professional care. 

Through these photographs I'm sharing with you what we saw as we walked around our property that day. Luckily, I think we were too focused on taking the photos to ponder much about what we were actually seeing. Otherwise, we would have been freaked out by the sheer magnitude of what needed to be done and we may not have bought our little cabin! At the time, we just focused on the birds singing and the magic of the towering pine trees and nonchalantly filed the rest (the dead tree branches, the sick trees, and the piles of yard debris) away for the future.

Our property












































So what do you think? Would you have gone running when you saw the sorry state of the property we were planning to purchase? Luckily, we didn't. Instead, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. 


I have to admit, that first fall we were getting a little discouraged when it felt like we weren't making much progress on our yard work. We hadn't even found a space in the trees we felt would make a good outdoor gathering spot for a fire pit. Then, one morning after the first snow, and as we were preparing to drive back to Boise, I jumped out of the car to take one last photo. I noticed the snow had fallen in an area beside the cabin where there were no trees, and I stood in the center of that spot and looked up at the blue sky above - through a perfect round opening in the trees big enough for the smoke from a fire pit to escape.


I'd found our spot!

We've spent many happy hours sitting there since. Next time, I'll tell you about the professionals we consulted and hired to teach us about our trees and to help us turn our sad and neglected property into a healthy forest again.

Till then, have a wonderful day!



  

2 comments:

  1. I do see some trees that need to come down, but also many spots where some great things can happen! Wishing you all the best, and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do see a lot of dead branches hopefully no trees, i pray those professionals will have some wonderful informative news. It is truly a beautiful spot.

    ReplyDelete

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