Spring?

I would say spring has sprung, but where I live, it might have just "spr-". One never knows what the weather will do till the end of April round these parts. Anyway, I don't care, the weather is beautiful and I can get things done outside around here, Huzzah!

My first task this spring is to get the apple trees puned, did I say pruned, I meant hacked within an inch of their lives. When we bought our home, just almost a year ago, it came with 7 apple trees spread over the property. One was in such bad shape the only option we had was to cut it down and another will probably have go at the end of this season, but the remaining 5, one of which has 4 kinds of crab apple on one tree, are in healthy enough shape but have not been puned in at least 10 years or so. They are terribly  overgrown and will be in even worse shape when I am through hacking away.

This is my first adventure pruning apple trees without being an assistant or being supervised. I have seen many an apple tree pruned but have never had full discretion to be the architect. After many conversations with my father, my go to when it comes to questions about trees, animals, and general outdoorsy things, and after many books on pruning I have officially started my 2010 pruning. The yard is strewn with limbs and the tree looks pretty sad at the moment. I do not expect much of an apple harvest this year, but at least we will be able to mostly reach and see what we harvest we will end up with. Next year should be better, but who knows what it will hold.

I am wishing we had our chipper so I could make short work of the limbs. I am also wishing we had our smoke house up and running, we will have a mass of apple wood chips at the end of this and I can think of nothing better than delicious smoked goodies. The smoke house is still about 8 years away sadly, but it will happen, oh yes it will. I suppose we can probably sell our apple wood chips...hmmm, I will have to look into that venture.

On the docket for today is more massive pruning, I have yet to finish my first tree, granted it is going to be the hardest to prune, but I still have 6 left. I have a feeling Mr. T is not going to appreciate all my hard work and all he will see is the mass of limbs in his yard, heck at this point that is all I see. Well a mass of limbs in the yard and 5 big limbs way up in the top that NEED to come out and I have no idea how to get to them. I am not as spritely as I used to be so climbing up into the tipps tops of trees is, one- scary and two- fairly hazerdous. I think I will be dragging the ladder out of the garage and hoping it doesnt sink 3 feet in the mud.

Other spring things include our second annual receiving of 1/4 cow, there is considerably more meat in the freezer this year than with last years cow, so hopefully it lasts much longer. Also we, I mean me, are anxiously awaiting our ducklings to hatch.  Jerry (an Ancona hen) and Momma D (a Muscovy hen) have patiently been sitting on their clutches for several weeks now. At last candeling we had 20 babies growing and thriving. What we will do with 20 ducklings I really don't know but I am very excited to see what we get.

I am now off to enjoy a beautiful spring day. Mr. T is working second shift today so he will be watching the little ones and I will be working away. I am very grateful to have a day, during the week, to work without interuption, for a few hours anyway.