Monday, May 7, 2007
Spring Projects
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Every Spring I think that after "this project", we're all done. And I can't think of any other projects we could do around here.
And, every Spring, I am proven wrong! LOL
As soon as the snow started to recede, but before the ground got soft, we started a pond. We had the use of a track hoe for free for 1 weekend. It's not done yet-we want to make the pond larger, but we got a ton of rain while digging and had to stop. There's piping in there to let the pond drain into a ditch and into the pond in the lower horse pasture for now. We don't want the pond to fill until it's all done.
 Below this post is a post about the start of the pond, although this happened a month or so ago.
Anyway, Saturday Pat & the 2 older kids did a bunch of firewood. Susanna & I worked in the garden mixing in compost and then planting lettuce, carrots, Swiss chard, cucumbers and zucchini. I have more to plant. Then we drove an hour to a nursery to buy fruit trees. This was a surprise to me.
We tried planting apple trees before we even built our house, but they didn't make it-due to poor soil, puppies and cows. Long story. LOL. So, we bought 3 disease resistant apple trees, 2 pear trees, a peach tree and at the last minute we decided to buy 8 blueberry bushes. I am SO excited!!
But, what a lot of work it was putting them all in the ground. Thankfully, a friend of ours lent us a tractor with a bucket.
 My dh now has some major tractor envy going on. We have an ancient Massey Ferguson called "Speed Buggy" because she sputters a lot. She also needs to be jumped before she'll start. And, no bucket or backhoe attachment. She was good when we had lots of brush-hogging and York-raking to do, but now she doesn't meet our needs anymore. Here's my man with 2 of the kids:
 We planted the apple trees alongside the driveway. We planted the blueberry bushes on the side of a hill not far from the blackberry bushes that are there. We didn't plant those-they were always here.
We fussed over their soil, adding stuff to make the dirt acidic. We should have berries next year.
We're going to have to wait a few years on the fruit, but we have friends with an apple orchard and we get apples from them for free in return for helping them prune trees or help in any way when they need it.
We also dug a trench alongside the upper cow pasture to put raspberry bushes. My MIL has bushes and I can get all the shoots I want. I've done this twice already, but the first time, I put them in a bad spot. The second time, we did it right, but then had to enlarge the cow pasture where the patch was and my compost bin. The cows trampled the bushes, of course and tore apart the compost bin.
That's another thing that needs to be done-put up another bin.
So, as soon as the shoots are ready, I'll transplant raspberries.
I'm a little nervous hoping we did everything right and that these trees and bushes do well.
I was reading a book to my 2 yr old this morning called "Jamberry" and it's all about a bear and berries-raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and blackberries.
I realized that soon, we'd be able to pick all 4 of those right here!! I can't wait and I do hope we get lots to eat, bake with, make jam with and freeze!!
The kids all helped with digging, raking & watering. Hannah (11) kept track of Susanna (2) when I needed her to. She also got dinner started because my dh's parents came for dinner. My FIL has 4 to 6 months left to live according to his doctor, so that's been a big thing to deal with.
Finally, I got some free time to just take a walk with Susanna. We took a picture of these pretty daffodils
 and went looking for the rabbit's house. We couldn't find it, but have an idea of the area. Sadly, we found a dead baby rabbit in the driveway. I don't know who the culprit is-the cat or one of the dogs. The cat doesn't have front claws (due to his previous owner), but he does kill mice when he feels like it. So, that's what's going on right now. Boy, am I sore. |
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Monday, May 7, 2007 - greetings
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