View From the Window

For a couple of years now the view from our kitchen window has looked like this:  

Looking out over our pasture, my eyes would stop at the line of trees and vines that marked our driveway.  While this vegetation made our yard very private, it also cut off any sort of view and made me feel confined and hemmed in, not a happy feeling at all.

At the same time, all those vines and trees were climbing up, up, up into the power, phone, cable, and Internet lines that marched up our driveway.  This was not a good thing, either.

So earlier this year my sweet -- and strong!-- Ben began the hard task of cutting back the growth, starting down at the lower end of the driveway.  Over the months he chopped, clipped, sawed, and otherwise whacked back the bushes and trees, and gradually the utility lines were freed up and the bigger trees in our little forrest were revealed.

I loved the new look.  I was very appreciative, but I felt bad that Ben was doing all this hard work and there was still the upper end of the driveway to manage.   

Steve, a man who had just done some tree work for us, was interested in the work so we offered him the job of clearing the last half, including taking out the fence posts and wire fencing we had put up more than twenty-five years ago.   

I wanted the open feel and look we had when we first moved in.  Here's a photo taken before we put the second story on our house.  You can see how the pasture was open to the driveway and the big lilac --now long gone-- that anchored the turn up by the house.  

It took Steve about a week of hard labor, but the bulk of the work is now done.  Now when I look at the kitchen window, I can see down to the road, with a clear view of the driveway and the open space of both our pasture and the neighbor's.  

I love my new view from the window!