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Battle of the Barberry- Dometastic 0, Barberry 1

This week my post isn't directly related to building the dome. We did get our 4th draft from the designer today (and it is very technical) but I was mistaken about the engineering being part of it already. What we have completed at this point is a full set of "standard construction drawings". I didn't realize there was another (even more technical) step. Just goes to show how little I know about the process of building a home. I am not sure if we should wait to go to the town until this next phase of the drawings is complete or go now. I will contact the town this week and ask them.

Warmer spring like weather has allowed us to begin working on the property much earlier than I expected. I spent a few hours clearing a path around the old barn in the woodsy area of the property in preparation for its spring makeover. It was slow going doing it by hand. I found 5 deer ticks on me after my effort. This was a bit of a surprise to me since it is still winter. For the rest of the day I was creeped out thinking things were crawling on me. I also pulled old random stacks of building materials, tires and random crap out of the brush. I wish I could say I was finished! I did buy a brush blade for the weed wacker to wage war on the prickers. The hand to hand combat is clearly in favor of the prickers.

Here is the old barn on the property. It is structurally sound but needs some love. This will be an equipment barn.



 All those bushes around the barn are Japanese Barberry! The stuff is evil!
We unfortunately have tons of invasive Japanese barberry bushes. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!

People planted them because the deer don't eat them and they are pretty shrubs when they are routinely trimmed.


Then they run wild and take over everything. They are the bunnies of the plant world that can live in full shade and full sun! Check out the thorns. I can barely pick up a branch with gloves on. The thorns are like needles and about a 1/2 in long. They go through most work gloves. They are 1000 times worse than rose thorns. If I were a deer I wouldn't eat them either!


There is a long list of reasons why they need to die but only one at the top of my list. They are deer tick nurseries. Tick nursery + home state of Lyme Disease = BAD.




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