Tracy and I bought the land that the house is built on just over 10 years ago. It took 3 years for the economy to rebound so we could get a decent price for our previous house and for me to design the new house and get it built. Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of us moving in. As soon as we got moved in we were avowed to buy the lots on each side of us to ensure that nobody built a house in our side yard. The lot to the left we got pretty quickly...probably about 5 years ago. The lot to the right took some time to coerce the owner into selling but we finally got it about a year and a half ago. Total of the three lots is just under four acres and all of it was untouched, natural Hill Country land. We spent years and thousands of hours cleaning it all up so we'd have a nice environment. We limbed up thousands of trees, cut out the dead branches, cut out hundreds of stumps, and moved countless tons of rock, and we did it all ourselves. The idea was to get the tractor through and keep it cut down to maintain the beauty of the land. Well, a whole lot of what we worked for was destroyed yesterday. We had an ice storm come through that has shut the whole area down, as well as taken down a whole lot of our trees. This is absolutely heartbreaking after all of our work. Please note though that trees around here are sacred. The whole area is solid rock and trees grow VERY slowly so any decent sized tree is treated with a certain reverence.
No dialog needed. The pics speak for themselves. First one is just showing the ice on a big oak tree right off the patio.
I only walked about half the property this morning taking these. I wasn't about to try going down the hill in the back to the canyon. That would be treacherous stumbling over all the ice covered rocks. It's devastating to see so much damage but that's not all of the issue. Now we have a huge amount of work cutting the stuff down, cutting it up, and getting it out of here. Was so disheartening sitting here last night listening to the tearing and crashing as the limbs came down but there wasn't a thing we could do. Sorry to take up so much time and space but it was kinda nice to vent a little bit. Seeing all of this hurts...really bad after all of our work. I know a lot of other folks have it a lot worse but sheesh, I moved to TX to get away from this kind of weather. Oh well...I guess I'm done with the "Tear In My Beer" melody.
Robert
No dialog needed. The pics speak for themselves. First one is just showing the ice on a big oak tree right off the patio.
I only walked about half the property this morning taking these. I wasn't about to try going down the hill in the back to the canyon. That would be treacherous stumbling over all the ice covered rocks. It's devastating to see so much damage but that's not all of the issue. Now we have a huge amount of work cutting the stuff down, cutting it up, and getting it out of here. Was so disheartening sitting here last night listening to the tearing and crashing as the limbs came down but there wasn't a thing we could do. Sorry to take up so much time and space but it was kinda nice to vent a little bit. Seeing all of this hurts...really bad after all of our work. I know a lot of other folks have it a lot worse but sheesh, I moved to TX to get away from this kind of weather. Oh well...I guess I'm done with the "Tear In My Beer" melody.
Robert