CASA of Maryland has an office on University Blvd just East of Flower Ave where you can hire day laborers for $10-$12/hr. This is more than mimimum wage, but CASA vets them to a certain extent and you can ask for specific skills (I ask for workers that speak English or French and who are willing to take orders from a woman -- not all will -- in addition to any particular skills I need that day). The office is open 7 AM - noon Mon-Fri, and workers often are available there freelance on weekends. It's negotiable whether you pay them for transit time (it's rare for them to have cars, so you'll need to bring your workers back to CASA at the end of the day) or lunch arrangements. I usually provide a range of soft drinks and cold water in addition to a simple lunch. If you put the pulled-up weeds into black plastic bags with a cup or so of high-nitrogen fertilizer and a coffee-can's worth of topsoil, then seal them and sit them in the sun, the contents will ferment into decent compost in a few weeks. They'll get hot enough to cook most weed seeds. Easier than hauling them off somewhere, but doesn't work well for woody stuff. Lynn

He is beautiful! We have a couple who live in my area.

You are so lucky to have seen your resident 'cat. We have one--I've seen her with her two kittens drinking from the pond, and one evening about sundown she strolled the fence line, very nonchalant. I've never felt threatened by our bobcat, but I sure wouldn't get between her and her young! The bobcats are a special gift--interesting to watch and a rarity.

We finished a house in the Rocky Mountains (snowy, similar to your situation) on an uphill lot. We bought the lot years ago, and based our decision on things like orientation, view, the other lot choices and a trail running along the back of the lot (which was a plus for us). We might have purchased a downhill lot if it had all of the other features that we wanted. What we like, now, about an uphill lot. Our slope is roughly the same as the lot you're looking at - doesn't seem like much until you want to put a house on it. Our driveway has a slope, of course, but it isn't very steep. It gets snow buildup because of the orientation, but not icy and we didn't have any issues this winter with difficulty in getting up the drive. We have a ground-level entrance, which is much better in terms of snow buildup and shoveling outdoor stairs in the winter. Inside, a stairway (half a level, a turn, then another half level) goes from the entry up to the main level of the house. So yes, we have to bring groceries up stairs, but at least they're inside. We have a great outdoor space out back that's dug a bit into the hillside (about 2 feet or so), with hot tub, grill, tables and chairs, lounge chairs, etc. The view out back is the forest (similar to your lot); it's peaceful, and we love looking out at the trees and animals. I've found that the views are more enjoyable from ground level. (Our "main" house is a walkout basement with a deck, where the views are from one flight up.). One advantage that we didn't consider is that it's very nice to have ground-floor access out back. Spouse can go out to the hot tub without going down any stairs. And I can head out on the trails behind the house directly from our main area. It works very well for us. We only have a small deck out front, partly because it's a northern exposure and we thought it would be too cold for a bigger deck there. Turns out, that's not the case. But because it's a retirement house, our little Juliette deck is just the right size for the spouse and I to sit out front in the morning with coffee and the newspaper. As with most things, there are advantages and disadvantages to an uphill or a downhill lot, but some of the factors may be different for you, based on how you would use the lot and the house you put on it.