It's Christmas eve and all but I started this yesterday and didn't get it finished and posted till now. I wanted to get an update on here. This is a follow on to some of the pictures taken in 2005 when I had just bought the property. Before's and afters...
You've already seen this but here's a recent ....
...picture from 5 years later. I'm trying to get the same approximate prospective for all the following pictures. So the before pictures are all from fall, 2005 and the afters are from fall, 2010. Everything following will be 5 years apart.
The addition of the car port alters the way the shop looks now but look at the block wall and you''ll see tuck point repairs on the upper part of the wall which are the same in both pictures.
This of course, is pretty much the reverse angle of the above two pictures. We had cleaned out just enough of a path to be able to start to see what needed to be cleaned up...everything!!
Once the brush was removed this is what you would have been able to see.
The west side wall of the original shop. In the foreground was his outside metal storage shed. Note the chimney for the forge. This wood wall was replaced with...
... concrete block and the lawn installed with landscaping. The trees are horn beam. Note there are now two metal chimneys for the two furnaces in this area of the shop and I removed all three windows which were in this section.
This is the reverse angle for the above picture, the block area jutting out was his coal room.
The covers are for the septic. The coal room turned into the bathroom.
This is the backyard, behind the house. Here's what you can't see....
...in the background is the family home and to the right the honey house.That tree is a Hackberry, tough as nails. Behind me was where he had all his bee hives, over 75 at one point. I've got plenty of movies showing them in action, plenty.
The shop can now be seen in the background. The place where I stood to take this picture is about the same place I found Mr Johnson's name tag 3 years earlier laying face up on top of the grass.
2005
2010...It's hard to see but on the limb on the left (going up to form a Vee) has a rod going through it into the main trunk in the center.
It might show up better here.
Mr Johnson placed several rods and cables in this tree to prevent the limbs from breaking off. I'm not too sure when he did it, but it's been at least 40+ years now. It's a practice frowned on now but back then "cabling" trees was widely done. Seems to have worked here. When we build our house that Hackberry will be in my front lawn.
That's it for today. Let me wish everyone out there all the very best holiday cheer. I expect to be back here tomorrow at some point, but right now Chris tells me she hears something on the roof so I better go "check" it out.
Thomas
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