Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome into 2020! We hope that this year brings you all health, happiness, and good fortune.

The holidays are always a complicated time. We are fortunate to have been able to enjoy happy, peaceful and relaxed holiday celebrations with each other, with Thomas’ grown son and with Thomas’ entire family. It is good for me, as I am far from my family for the holidays. We do talk on the phone and skype, but it is not the same. Having family here makes it easier.

For the past several years, we have both made it a priority to place family and friends center in our lives during this time. Christmas cards were sent at Thanksgiving, menus were kept simple and easy, presents were planned and purchased in advance (with only a minor major glitch) and wrapped.

Christmas Card Caveat

If you did not receive a card this year, PLEASE contact me via PM or here on the blog—in the move the ONLY thing I have seemed to misplace is my address book with all your addresses. It was so hard tracking down the ones I could. I am sorry if I missed you! Honestly!

Next year I hope to be back in form.

Celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Eve German Style

Christmas Eve was going to be spent with Thomas including the Nativity Program at the local church, but Thomas’ son was able to come over spontaneously. We haven’t seen him in a long time, so we were thrilled to change our plans into a lovely simple Christmas Eve dinner together.

On Christmas Day, Thomas and I made sure to get out and spend time relaxing and enjoying the day.

St. Stephen’s Day (the Second Day of Christmas) was spent with Thomas’ family. Every year we get together for a family dinner and then coffee, cake and Christmas cookies.

New Year’s Eve we also spent with his extended family. As is tradition, we had a raclette dinner and then toasted to the New Year 2020.

But now, Advent is over and Christmas holidays have all been celebrated; we have rung in a new year and a new decade. Time for me to write you again.

Vacation Goals:

We had originally planned on finishing the mudding and skimming of the walls after adding drywall to the wall covering the roofing beam. It turned into my job, as Thomas had done most of the heavy-lifting already. I was doing a great job and got the skimming and corners done on all the ceilings before my arm decided I needed to take a break.

Hedging Our Bets

It was actually fortunate, as an unseasonably warm front had come in and we needed to do something about our hedge. German preservation law states we only have until 1. March to cut down any trees, so any clear days need to be used effectively.

By the end of the day, however, the trimmings from the branches Thomas had already removed had created a pile as tall as I am and over 10 feet long! Thomas was frustrated (as was I). At this rate, we would be spending days removing the branches and never get the hedge removed in time.

Lessons Learned

When I say: we needed to remove our hedge, friends have commented that it is the work of a day. I confess, I have done the same thing when other people show their accomplishments with pride. Often, when a project is finished the work is just not visible to an outsider. This hedge is a lesson in humility. It is teaching me how to see the work other people are so rightly proud of accomplishing.

So, to give you a view of our hedge after Thomas had removed most of the lower branches:

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Yes, it does look like a rain forest in there. We had never been able to enter that part of the yard before. The hedge is over 10 feet wide and up to 15 in the corners. And here we thought it was only going to be maybe 6 feet wide.

The only solutions we were coming up with were expensive (outsourcing), complicated (continuing as before) or finding a landscaping-strength chipper to rent.

Give Thanks for Boys and Their Toys

Then our neighbor, Thomas (yes, there are two of them here–don’t get confused like we do), offered to try out his chipper. He had inherited it and had yet to use it.

Spontaneous change of focus: cut off all branches as far in as possible, trim them down and prep them for shredding. Thomas and I worked in tandem with him using the chainsaw to remove the branches and I stripped them and drug them away from the hedge to give Thomas room to work.

Warning

Remember, using chainsaws is dangerous work. Make sure you are wearing the appropriate gear. The Thomas’ both wore forestry pants and head gear including a mesh face cover, ear protection, safety shoes, and gloves. They were working with the machinery.

After about 30 min. Thomas stopped to ask me to get ear protection, as well. Saws have high frequencies which can cause hearing damage even if it doesn’t seem that loud. After 4 hours of machinery running, I was very thankful for the muffled sounds. I was wearing heavy gloves, heavy work pants and safety shoes. It really DOES make it easier to work.

Not only people working with machinery should wear protective clothing. Every one close by should wear ear protection. Everyone should wear appropriate (heavy) clothing for protection.

Moving On

Thomas showed up with the chipper early afternoon. While setting things up, we were all nervous, hoping it would work like we had hoped. It might save us a little bit of time. (My) Thomas figured the chips would only fill up maybe 2 trailers and it would take about 2 hours total.

Spoiler: He was slightly off.

While we were in the midst of this, Thomas’ parents showed up. As I have previously written, they are the ultimate team, when it comes to felling trees. Dad pulled out his chainsaw, while Mom followed my lead and started stripping the branches and sorting the largest ones (to be cut for firewood) from the smallest to be chipped.

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By the end of the day, the next trees had been felled, the branches mostly stripped and ½ the pile chipped into 2 large 1.5m² bags and two trailers.

After a quick coffee break, the parents left with a trailer to be disposed at the local recycling center by their house, planning on returning the next day at 10am. As the trees are cedar, using the chips would inhibit other plants from growing, so we had to remove them.

(It smelled great, though!)

The next morning, we were outside before the sun was above the trees, cutting the branches off the last trees. Our hope was to finish the project that day.

We worked together that day until 3 pm. All five of us together!

Check out what we ended up with:

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Timing is everything

We finished just in time, too. The next day it rained. I spent 4 hours in January icy rain raking up the rest of the cedar chips and branches from the field. Thomas was helping out on the farm.

Blessings

How many times have I said we are so lucky to have such wonderful neighbors? Without Thomas’ help, there is no way we would have this project done.

The best part of this? The number of neighbors we have met. This is historic for not only us. There are people who had never seen this house. To others, it was a barrier from saying hi. Now, when people walk by, they greet us. We are so happy to get to know everyone. Even the horses stop to look (seriously, the horses stop to check out the missing hedge—not their humans). It is quite comical.

So our gift we didn’t plan was opening our property and giving us light to grow. All I have to do is compare the title photo of this post to the ones when we moved in.

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Now it is time for me to sit down and make up a list of projects for 2020. No resolutions. No timelines (they don’t work anyway). Just projects to finish.

I hope your new year started out with a bang like ours did. May you be filled with motivation and excitement for what 2020 brings each and every one of you!