ABOUT HALF DONE

Janice and I got the chipper hooked to the back of the truck today and started chipping the leavings from all of our pruning this spring. there was a lot of pruning as we had neglected getting it done for at least a couple of years. We had piles of brush sitting all over the place, but then what do I expect with over seventeen fruit trees, the Kiwi's, the Currents and Josta Berries, and the Blue Berries, oh, I forgot the Filbert Trees. It's going to get worst I just planted fifty more Filberts into hedges this year.

 This stuff will go very well in the compost pile.

This is about a half of the pruning's that needed to be chipped. We plan on moving the truck tomorrow in order to finish. After we get the chipping done we need to spray all the trees and berries with Lime Sulphur to try to stop any fungal issues. We had some pretty bad fungal stuff going on last summer, which didn't help the fruit production last year

MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

You have to get done what you can in between storms, So Janice and I have been working our back sides off, Mostly Janice. As you can see from the first picture I started digging down the area between the Filberts and the River Rock Wall. While doing this project we moved the Bartlet Pear back against the bank at the back edge of the driveway.

 I will have to replace some soil back into this area, but want to grind three stumps, remove rocks, and mix in a liberal amount of Compost also. We intend on putting a stack block wall along the back to cover the raw dirt edge by the filberts, almost all the way to the greenhouse.

After moving the Pear tree and thinking "hey not too bad of a job it has a good chance to survive." we decided to move the tree that was supposed to be a Yellow Delicious, but turned out to be a Granny Smith, back just over from the Pear we had just moved.

 Dig the tree out, being careful not to dig up the drain field!

 Dig the new hole, big hole!

Install tree in new location. Unfortunately I scuffed up the apple more than I did the Pear, but I hope they both survive. We are planning on lining the back edge of thee driveway with fruit trees. We have several small trees in pots in the greenhouse. About five Freedom Apples and one more Asian Pear.

Well looks like all went well, now to see if they survive. My eldest son DJ moved a large Apricot from here in Gold Beach clear over to his yard in Grants Pass, and it survived well, only time will tell.

They look pretty good in their new locations. As if this wasn't enough work  We (Janice did Most) also pruned all of the rest of the fruit trees which had been neglected for a couple of years, and the Kiwi which thought it needed to make up time for being in the pots so long, last year



FINISHED

I have finally finished the flower picture I was embroidering. I started it last winter and got a ways on it then Spring sprung and I had other, more important stuff to do, like work in the yard and garden. Growing our own stuff is always more important and more fun. Especially if you like to dig in the dirt like I do. Anyway, back to the picture. I picked it up again this winter and finally finished it just after the first of the year. It was fun to do , but I still have to build a frame for it and get it framed and hung. Don will probably do most of that but I enjoy wood working also and will help where I can. Now that it is finished I can start on another project. I will probably pick out something and get it in my sewing basket and ready for winter.

I think this kind of stuff is slowly going away. It use to be women and some men really enjoyed doing this kind of stuff. It was common and now the computer age is here and our children are more involved with electronics than hand work. I wish I could get my grandchildren involved with it but they too are more involved with electronics. Maybe some day they will want to learn.

ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG!!!

I have been trying to add a picture to a post that I have wanted to get posted and for some reason Google won't pick up the browser to let me add a picture. I don't know what to do. I have tried to send a feedback comment to google and they will not respond to me. If anyone else has had this problem could you send me a comment and let me know if it can be fixed. I don't know what else to do. This is very frustrating.

STARTING THE NEW YEAR OFF

We are now well into the new year and I have been getting ready for the spring planting. I have already started the pruning of the trees and still have quite a bit more to do. I started a list of TO DO things and am already starting to plane for my garden. Last year I just planted stuff in the garden just because I could. This year I am going to concentrate just on the foods that we like to eat and can. I don't have a lot of garden space that gets a lot of sun so I have to be careful as to what I am going to plant, so I have started a new garden journal and am going through all of my garden seeds to pick out what I want to plant. I also found on line a "when to start your seeds" plan and am going to try to stick with this to see if it will help me get on a regular program.
I know that we will still have lots of rain and maybe even snow coming this year but I can get my seeds started in the greenhouse. I need to start moving the compost around to the garden beds that I am going to use and getting them ready for planting. The greenhouse is the biggy for me since we don't get a lot of heat here.
Mostly the cooler weather crops do better here. I can grow some of the longer growing season crops but have to use make shift covers to protect the plants until it does start warming up. This usually works pretty well, although when the wind blows, and it does blow quite hard at times, it will blow the cover off and I fight it every year. I wish I could come up with something that would work better. I am still working on that. I have a few ideas but not enough time to do everything so I will make do with what I have for now, at least until I have a few minutes to spend on my ideas.
I really love gardening and being outside. I would rather dig in the dirt than clean my house. I can't go outside, even in my nice clothes, without getting dirt on me some how. Don laughs at me sometimes because of it. That's OK, he does it too.
We have lots of plans for this year again, seems like we always do but not enough time to do them all. I would really like to start some new raised garden beds with covers on them for growing. I have plans, that my son Jon drew up for me, that I would like to build this year but Don needs to dig down the area that I want to put them.
Well I guess we will do what we can and leave the rest for the next year as usual. I will try to keep you up on the progress as we go this year.
Happy gardening to all. Try it you might like it.

ANOTHER TRIP TO CALIFORNIA

We are down at Janice's parent's home again. This has been a very good trip thus far, When we arrived Martha was not doing much for exercise, but now She is walking around the kitchen holding onto the counter,

Last night Martha let go of the counter and stood alone, also walking over into the dinning area.

 Martha then walked out to the front room, but wait she sat at the piano and played pretty well. Needless to say this was very encouraging for all of us.

We were all ecstatic at Martha's progress while we have been here, she has done soooo wellllll!!!