With four acres of untamed land we knew we would have our work cut out for us. When we first arrived we had to at least clear enough of the front driveway/courtyard to be able to drive our vehicle in. Then Britton worked on the lower fenced back yard and slowly we have moved our way out of the chain link fence area into the real jungle where we are slowly planting our orchard of tropical fruit trees.

Plants in waiting

Clearing the jungle is hard work. Even though it is December we still have some pretty intensely hot days which makes it even harder. It is ok to go out for a few minutes and water the trees and plants in waiting under the house but when it is a bright sunny day like yesterday, it only takes about 10 minutes in the sun before we are sweating and our energy starts to drain.

When it gets that hot we will usually go and hang out in the cabana. Because it is located under a huge mango tree it stays cool and shady most of the day.

After we mistakenly took down the avocado tree because it was covered in vines, we decided we would do our best to clear out all the small trees and vines around the big ones before we took them down. But that is quite the undertaking.

Probably the hardest part of clearing the jungle are all the vines! Some of these vines are the size of tree trunks! They criss-cross and tangle themselves making it just about impossible to tear them off the tops of the trees. Then you add in the fact that these vines have flowers that attract the bees and you can see the challenge we face.

Our tools of choice working in the jungle area are pruners/loppers, a hand saw and a machete. We swing around the machete to try to make an indentation in all the growth and I go in under it and snip at the small 1 inch or less diameter trees, plants and vines that are growing around and over the bigger trees. Once I clear the area around the bigger trees, Britton takes the handsaw to them and we then drag them to piles scattered all over the back.

When we have some space cleared and we know we won’t be dropping a huge tree on top, we plant our fruit trees. Because it is so green, we have had to try various methods of marking them. Our current method is to put a stick painted in the orange-red paint of the cabana next to each tree we plant.

Orange tipped sticks mark our recent transplants

We are not exactly sure what to do with all this material we have piled up but we will need to do something or the vines will take over and we will have big tangled messes once more. We have started a compost pile with some and we are thinking of maybe having a campfire/bonfire and inviting some friends over to roast marshmallows on the remainder.

Piles of sticks, branches and tree trunks

We still have a long way to go. We have probably cleared a good acre and planted about 30 plants (including ornamentals) by now, but have 3 more acres and 15-20 more plants (in the current load)! We have not decided how far we want to clear because the more we clear, the more we will have to maintain or the jungle will claim it once again.

It is very physically hard work and we’ve been waking up sore. Our feet hit the hard tiles in the morning and we can feel our bones moan. Our hands are blistered and our bodies stiff. But it is gratifying in a way. There is something about using your body for work that is underappreciated in the modern world.

Most modern people (us included) walk around with our heads detached from our bodies. So when we get out there and get dirty and sweaty and messy it awakens in us that mind-body connection. We directly and immediately can see the progress (and mistakes). And we can look towards the future as well: the thoughts of tasting juicy tropical exotic fruits in a few months or years keeps us going.

Baby starfruit on our new tree

Plus we have perspective. There is no way we could be doing yard work or planting trees in the depths of the arctic weather that Colorado is having right now and that is a sweet feeling in itself.