once upon a time, beside the back right corner of our pond there sat a small jungle.

with a trimmer, zero turn mower, hatchet, and 3 hours i turned it into an oasis.

here we shot guns. the teenager down the street caught bass. turtles hung out on the shore.

until the Tornado of February 2023. it took out all these trees, and there was little we could do about it because the trees fell into the water instead of on the ground.

but that changed this weekend. a new tree guy in town was up for the challenge, and after several attempts (with $0 payment required) he found the magic combination: excavator + sweat.

naturally, this ruined the earth. most of the grass is gone and our shooting range is now a dirty mess.

mother nature saw us put 1,000 cute rounds into these pines and finally said "hold my beer." everything was over in 30 seconds. #neverforget

this is Part 1 of several for a project i'm dubbing Operation: Picnic.  here's the full vision:

stay tuned!