We live in the woods, so do critters that eat little kids :-). Last fall, a neighbor's horse was attacked by a cougar. We were not terribly surprised, but it did make me consider the very dense undergrowth of the forest around our house. I resolved to remove as much preditor cover as possible as soon as possible. We also talked about getting a herding dog to watch over the smaller children. The first of May, it finally stopped snowing, and we got to work at the property clearing the woods of smaller trees and brush, and selecting which trees to keep and which to cut. The kids piled the smaller trees, brush and limbs while I cut things down. It really quenches 
the destructive gene I have in my body :-)!! We have a large percentage of white fir, which is not really good for anything, so we are removing alot of them. We want to keep the white pine, they are the most valuable trees we have. The ponderosa pine get very large and are pretty, we will keep most of them. There are also red fir, a good mill log, and lodgepole pine as well. The house is made of lodgepole, they are very abundant on our property. Someday we hope the market value will go back up, and we will take a few truck loads off to the mill.In the meantime, we have literally tons of
firewood. Our goal is to make the 5 acres around the house very park-like, with little undergrowth, sparse trees, and ultimately, a much greater view base for keeping an eye on our little blessings running around, lest they become cougar bait.Each of these photos represent a type of tree that we have on our property. One is a White Fir, one is a White Pine, and one is a Red Fir. Can you identify which is which? The answers will be in the next post!! Happy tree identifying!!
