Parks and Recreation and Weeding?

To my surprise, we now have the start of a park up in the meadow/orchard behind our house.  You may remember, or maybe you've seen it, previously we had several trails leading through areas of grass and weeds as tall as I am.

But then Leann had an idea.  She talked to Carl, a neighbor up the road who has a tractor and brush-hog, and now we have the start of a park!

He said he could get it down shorter, but it's pretty tough since it hasn't been mowed--or tilled--in over 50 years.  This used to be a field where they grew crops until farming stopped and it went wild with apple trees and weeds.

I told him we'd call him back for another go at it next year, and he suggested doing it in July before all the weeds go to seed.  As it was, he said, he was really just spreading seeds yesterday...and not the good kind!

I was driving around in our 4-wheeler while he was working, but without our defined trails, I got pretty disoriented.  We still have our little numbered markers, but the trails are blended into the whole mowed area.  Of course, now we can drive wherever we want and don't need the trails!  I hope we don't get lost!

I know Leann is already planning how she's going to mow up closer to the apple trees and REALLY get the "park" looking nice!

And speaking of looking nice, our little post office was moved to its new building on Washington Street sometime in the early 1980's.  At the time my father was newly retired here and offered his landscaping expertise and his labor to landscape the south side of the building by the parking lot.  

Fast forward to summer, 2014.  The USPS has cut the hours of our post office so it's only open noon to 4pm weekdays and a couple hours Saturday morning.  Our postmistress had to cram more work into fewer hours (surprise, surprise!) and the weeds were taking over.

So we went down there today and took a first stab at cleaning it up a little.  After just a half hour, a small section was cleared out, a giant weed/tree was whacked out of a good tree, and the back end of Cammie was full of brush!

Just a little less shaggy but we'll be back...with a broom next time!

Don't you just love black-eyed Susans?