Clearing ground, and more design musings

So, we have moved back to the Vineyard, back to my parents' house, and are renovating the house that I grew up in, summers, and lived in for a few years here and there in my earlier adulthood. It's all on one big lot. My parents built the original house in 1971-'72, but in the mid-90s, they decided it just wasn't big enough to serve as their primary residence... especially since it had (horror of horrors) only one bathroom. So they built this house, which is about two or three times the size of the old one, and has three and a half baths.

The two houses share roughly five acres, most of it covered in scrubby oak and pine. People have always said to me that they think this is a beautiful part of the island, but I've never been enthusiastic about the landscape immediately surrounding our house. I find it dull and a bit closed in. The trees loom over the house, making it feel dark except when the late-afternoon sun hits its more open northwest side.

In hopes of remedying this situation, I have made a preliminary landscape plan which calls for cutting down at least fifty to a hundred trees and killing off about a huge poison-ivy thicket. I want to replace all of that with lawn, garden, and orchard. It's a long range plan, and I worry that it might be a bit too ambitious, but if we're going to be living here for the foreseeable future, I want to enjoy the place and get the most out of it.

At the moment, I have no qualms about clearing those trees. They crowd each other horribly, and all of them of species that are plentiful around here.

Meanwhile, we're 99% done with the demolition and my father is on the verge of saying we can set a date with the tile guy. I'm shopping kitchen cabinets like there's nothing else to do, and musing on the economics of gardening and home food production. More on that in a minute!

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