It’s been four months since the tornado. I have serious respect for those who soldier through natural disasters and put their lives back together.
We spend many hours dealing with the clean up, the restoration and the insurance claims. We finally finished the tree removal. Five days of a full crew, removing over a hundred trees.
The Cutting Edge did all our tree work. Highly recommended. Between them and Absolute Landscaping we have almost cleared it all. Absolute now begins the repair work.
Two small locally owned companies. Howard County at its best.
We have half an acre being cleaned up and reseeded. Days of milling and scraping, adding top soil and lime, and then putting in a hardy grass to prevent erosion. We were covered in invasive plants, which we are trying to eradicate.
Things look pretty bad at times, but we do have faith.
Some of this land will hopefully end up with trees from a grant to reforest with native nut bearing deciduous trees. We are included in a proposal by Howard Ecoworks to use native trees to increase the forest canopy in the county.
Until then we are just stabilizing the area because we had major erosion in July when those three inches of rain ripped through our area.
Beyond the current work load around here, I did still make time to try something new with some native grapes. Muscadines. We had two quarts of them from our farm share.
I turned to Vivian Howard again for a recipe. Deep Run Roots.
Grape Hull Preserves.
Things are always better when you can add food making to your day. It’s my release valve. My escape from noise and dust.
Hopefully one day we will finish and can return to our hobbies, and our peace and quiet.
AnnieRie Unplugged 
Mother Nature whips through and does her thing, and either we rebuild or give up – either we survive or we don’t – on the other hand, sounds like you all have some irons in the fire to restore land with native things that will do it’s best to help Mother Nature’s ‘cleanse’ get back to rejuvenation status and more hardy, in future – – one picture shows a lawn with a house standing behind it – yours? or neighborhood shot? I confess to not keeping up with full story – but – house, home and natives that provide gifts for the pantry – all are things that support folks in carrying on in the carrying on operations – – :D. and, in the end, until one lives through the impact of that which appeared in a moment and still, changed a life and perspective forever, well, one, IMHO hasn’t really LIVED! So Congrats on being stubborn and showing up to hold on – even when Life seems to be full of jack-slaps – you’ll never, ever regret the lessons learned and gifts given from having lived through this – – :D. luvs and hugs from been there, done that more times than like to count in Colorado – ❤