Well, Rats! Wayne came and he worked 4 1/2 hours and then had to go for more fuel. He said he was afraid that, if he went across the swamp one more time, the road would be so torn up he couldn't do it again, but he figured it would take him twice as much time more as he already spent, which would require him to come out again to fuel his machine again. So he needs to go in and out twice. That means he has to wait til it gets drier, or til the road is improved. But I don't have enough money to fix the road now.
Besides, he doesn't want to go ahead until I go in there and make sure he's doing what I want, but after he went over it, he doesn't think I can get over on the 4 wheeler. There is another way around, in which you stay on dry, firm ground, but that means going over the neighbor's place, and she's mad at me. The Dept. of Agriculture came and took away all her animals, and she blames me, as well as the rest of the people on the road, because when she asked they told her that everybody on the road was griping.
I wrote her a letter right after I found out about it, because it was not myself who called them, although I have had more damage from them than anyone else, but evidently she doesn't believe me. Anyhow, I doubt she'll let me go across her property now. So, what will I do?
Another problem is that, since there is a lot more woods there than I thought there would be, there is a thicker pile of chips than I expected. Wayne thinks there may be as much as 2 1/2 feet of them in some places. A few inches would be OK, but such a deep layer is too much. I will have to move them some way, and I suppose the most practical would be to have some sort of tractor push them into a heap at the edge of the clearing. I would like to make them into charcoal, but that will take a while. All this means the whole project will cost more than I was figuring on. My daughter will say, "I told you so." And I will have to wait longer to finish it, because I don't have the money for all that yet.

This morning I got a call from Wayne, the man with the machine that clears the ground by chopping all the wood up into chips. He said he has to sharpen the teeth of his machine today and he can come tomorrow morning. I said I went down there with my 4-wheeler, but didn't attempt to go over, because I was afraid of getting stuck when I was down there all by myself, so maybe he should come look at it to make sure it's dry enough to get across the swamp before he brings his machine out. He said, if I went down there, he doesn't think he'll have any trouble.
I really need to get the road improved, but I don't have enough money. I hope it is nearer the shorter time in his estimate for clearing, too. No word about the lilacs that are to come in the mail, yet, and I am hoping the place will be ready for them by the time they come.

It has been a while since I have had anything to post. I suppose I could have posted every time I sold another lilac spoon. I have to add up how many I have sold but not yet put the money in my labyrinth account. I didn't know how long they'd leave a blog here if no activity happened on it, so I was alarmed when it told me there was no such blog, but I discovered right away it was because of a typo in the word labyrinth.
Anyhow, the news right now is that I have called to get the man with the machine over to finish clearing trhe area where the labyrinth is going to be. I hope it will be ready before the lilac bushes come that are replacements for the ones that turned out to be dead when I bought them last year. I don't know just when that will be, but it could be almost any time, now.
I hope not everybody has forgotten about this project and this blog.