Chipping and Retaining Walls

We borrowed our neighbor's chipper and took it over to Waterville yesterday. Scott was also kind enough to load our ATV ("Little Red") into his pickup truck and bring that over for us. Caroline has spent the last couple of days chipping various branches and also doing a fair amount of brush mowing. We figure we'll use the chipper for about a week and then return it. We could chip for the rest of our lives and still not be done. We've been trying to make the area around the shed more attractive and while we could put everything on the burn pile it makes sense to try to keep some of the biomass on the ground to supply nutrition for the remaining trees. It's shaping up to be a busy real estate week so not sure how much we'll actually manage to get done.

On a "bummer" note the pond continues to lose water. We measured the output from the hose yesterday and it is only about 1/3 gallon per minute. Obviously not enough to make up the losses. Don't know if we are looking at a leak or all evaporation. Also don't know how we would figure that out.
I got the last of the stubborn stumps out at the sawmill shed site yesterday. I leveled things out and started on the rear retaining wall. Today I basically finished up the wall though we still need to backfill it and level out above it. It isn't pretty but also doesn't look terrible. I expect it will do it's job. Next step is to do an exact layout for the building and start digging for, and setting the pressure treated posts. We are also planning to add some drainage pipe to try to keep thing dry under the roof.

While we were working over on one corner of the property moving rocks and a stump. I managed to uncover a yellow jacket nest. There are advantages to a backhoe since I didn't get stung. I don't think the hoe was very impressed by the bees. I figured we would leave the area for awhile. Next time over I might try leveling the area and adding some dirt. Hopefully the bees will have moved on.