February really packs a punch.
Finally got some good weather for pruning this weekend and so got down to business with pruning fruit trees and roses.
Eased myself in with rosebushes on Friday, and then Saturday I felt I was ready to take on the big apple tree. I spent about 4 hours sawing, clipping and lopping. And then I realized that we might need to take more drastic action to address a structural issue.
It turns out that, due to a bad pruning decision about 14-15 years ago, we had a rot problem atop the northwest quadrant of the tree that was likely going to cause the canopy on that side to give way at some point.
Here is the tree last year after pruning
So we had to take out vertical bit right there in the center.
And there is the aftermath- strewn on the ground beneath.
Here’s a picture of aforementioned rot
We might need to do some further reductions to bring the tree back in balance, but will leave that decision for later. I’m pretty darn worn out from hauling off the debris.
This week also saw the arrival of a bunch of baby chickens from the farm store. The Man picked out a bunch of Golden Sexlinks Friday, and I augmented the batch with a few little Welsummers on Saturday. They are settled into their little chick habitat in the shop for now- peeping and bopping about and being super cute
So that’s pretty exciting- and by late summer we should be up to our eyeballs in eggs!
In wool news, I’ve got a bobbinful of Felix singles spun up, probably almost half of the rolag mountain.
And I’ve finally made a start on Dolores’ Notorious judicial outfit.
Dolores is pretty excited about a new getup, so I’d better get on with it!
Wow- you really pruned that tree. I love Welsummers.
we did. lost a huge bit of the canopy because all the branching on that side was way up high. really hoping that the tree will recover ok from its “renovation”. I love Welsummers too. Couldn’t pass them up when I saw them at the farm store!