UPDATE FOR MAY 27, 2020 PROGRESS

We have made some progress on projects lately. got a new package of bees and got them into the hive. We checked on them yesterday and did not see the queen but we did see new larvae. I also went a round to the neighbors and assisted him in capturing a swarm of bees that landed in a tree on his property. we used another neighbors 32 foot extension ladder and with a lot of luck and the bravery of the neighbor got most of the bees. yeasterday he again went up into the tree to retrieve the rest of the bees. I have to admit that if it were up to me to go up that ladder, the bees would still be in the tree.

We, with the help of our eldest son made more progress on the new greenhouse. see new pictures at the bottom of the associated post.

Also we have been using electric fence to allow the cattle to graze more of our property, saves feed, and I don't have to weed eat.

Janice has been getting our garden going, working like a mad woman, and doing a great job.

Last but not least we had the metal building people come back and install a roll up door in the bottom end of the cows barn, I will try to get new pictures of that up soon. Eden the cow is making great headway getting used to Janice handling her, the little guy not so much, you can stand close just don't try to touch him.

FRUIT HARVEST 2019

Our Heavenly Father truly blessed us this year with a bountiful fruit harvest.

 Today Janice and I took three and a half hours to harvest our apples and Bosc pears.

 The variety of apples we picked are Spartan (a cultivar of Mackintosh) these were the two boxes at the front of the bed and the two buckets, these were the most numerous. Then there were the Liberty apples which are the two boxes stacked next the Bosc Pears (the dark green fruit in the left rear of the Gator. 

 Then came the Honey Crisp, love these, they are the box just left of the two buckets.

 The next variety was Freedom Apples, in the box on the passenger seat. the Liberty and Freedom Apples were both developed is a study in New York State. The freedom trees are still very small in fact this is the first year some trees started producing. we have a total of six Freedom Apple trees, one stating to produce pretty good several only had four or five apples this year, a couple had none yet.

 The next variety is the mystery apple. When we purchased the tree it was supposed to be a Yellow Delicious, when it produced it's first fruit it was green and stayed that way into November, so we assumed then it could be a Granny Smith. Well then the apples started to get a slight blush, and were decidedly sweeter, so now they are the mystery apple.

This is not to mention the Bartlett Pears and the Asian Pears that were ripe a month ago. I absolutely love the Asian pears, really sweet and supper juicy along with pretty crispy. We have three Asian Pear trees but this year we only harvested one tree, and one tree the Racoon's got to before we could, the other is not producing yet. I did not mention the two Fuji Apple trees, they actually produced very small apples but we need to move them to better locations as they are in well tiles alone the driveway and don't do well there. I also did not mention that many of these trees I grafted myself while teaching grafting for the local Master Gardeners.

THE PROPOSED NEW GREENHOUSE

As mentioned in another post this is going to be the second structure we ordered. it will be 12 foot wide by 40 feet long with a roll up door at each end, and will have teen foot side walls.

 This view is looking north toward the stalls we built for the horses, which is now the equipment shed. I had to excavate the areas for the pier blocks in order to get them level. we also had to tuck it up next to the back flower garden so we would still have enough room for driving into the carport.

 this is the view looking toward the house. Holy cow, this area has a lot of rock after being used as a driveway for the last forty years of so, we are going to have to dig out the interior and remove a lot of rock, then add a lot of humus and some good compost.

Sadie has been supervising all of out projects on the place sine we got her.

Well the frame is almost complete. I still need to add some support between the up rights and roof trusses to support some polycarbonate panels that are still to be ordered.

Another view, showing the roll up doors on each end. This is to allow me to drive the tractor with rototiller through the greenhouse after I dig out the rocky soil and replace it with good gardening soil,

I am going to post this now, but it is far from being done, I will add more as this project progresses.

Making progress on the new greenhouse. Our eldest son came over and was helping us start installing perlings and poly-carbonate siding on the new green house.

 This is the east side or back side, there is a lot of vegetation that needs to be trimmed up for more light.

 another picture of the back.

 This is the west side of the green house along the upper drive way. this side is not finished yet.

This is looking through the greenhouse toward the north east.The item under the blue tarp is my back hoe attachment.

making more progress on this project.

 as of today the shell of the greenhouse is almost complete. This end, the sides, and the roof are done, as wll as some short pieces of poly carbonate on the other end.

 We still need to clean up some of the brush up on the hill behind the back side wall and install some treated @x12's on the inside walls at the bottom to protect the plastic.

 This side will also have a path around for maintenance.

 looks a lot bigger since most of the shell is on it, 12x40 is a good sized greenhouse.

 This is the end away from the house, that is yet to be completed. it is hard to see from the picture but there are only two pieces of poly carbonate about half way up from the bottom, there are still five pieces to go up.

 This is an inside view from the opposite end looking toward the house, color me happy!

NOTE ON GRAFTING

Well I tried six Cleft Grafts last year, only one out of six were successful. I know that this is a low percentage graft, but I think some of the failures must have been because of something I did or did not do. 

Also, we had to move an apple tree and some roots made small unknown trees, so like any determined gardener, I re-potted them.
This spring, actually just the other day. I grafted these small trees. most were grafted with the purchased tool, but I did do two whip grafts. Three of the little trees were already grown into small branched trees, and with these I top worked, or in other words did multiple grafts, on the smaller branch wood The pictures below are some of the grafts That I just completed about a week or so ago.

All of other grafts look to be taking thus far, I grafted them all to honey crisp, just because I like that variety. The large tree in the yard that was a Spartan appears to have those grafts taking hold also.

. I will try to keep everyone updated.

SPRING IS COMMING

I decided that since spring is close to coming, I should get another post done for our blog, so here goes. Today is sunny and clear, a little chilly  but not too bad. Janice and I have been pruning trees, shrubs, and vines.



 We have the Filbert trees at the top of the yard done and they look so very much better. We have removed one rooted sucker and still need to remove two or three more, and will give to the kids.

 While pruning the filberts, we dug up the strawberries and after we finish filling the area with soil we will re-plant them.

 This Spartan Apple looks so very much better since it got it's hair cut.

 This Asian Pear looks weird because the tree still has two varieties grafted onto it. When I bought it the tree had two Asian and two European pears grafted to it. Needless to say that is the last multi-varietal tree I purchase as I don't care for the look of the trees, and they are extremely hard to prune.

 In this picture the little tree in the fore ground is a Honey Crisp, then the Bosc Pear at the end of the greenhouse and another Asian Pear behind the garden shed. The two Pears are pruned, I have not pruned the Honey Crisp yet as I want to use the trimmings for Scion Wood for grafting some root stocks that I have as well as the large Spartan I am top working.

 Well if you remember from the last post the plum tree that was horribly over grown, is now pruned and looking better. The Spartan in the fore ground was cleft grafted last year, but only one graft took, so I am going to graft most of the brushy twigs this year and then choose which to leave later.

 The Kiwi are cut back to the top of where we are building the Pergola, and back to single stems.

 Unfortunately when you prune plants you get lots of waste that will need to be chipped or burned.

 Just another pile of chipper food.

 The pond this time of year is very nice, clear and full.

 I truly love the pasture this time of year, but we still need to cut the fallen tree and branches.

 The other day Janice and I dug out a small clump of bamboo (see second from the bottom) that was too far out the other side of the group, and re-planted it into an opening where it is seen now.

 Janice's Linton Rose is blooming to beat the band right now. It usually continues for a long time in the spring.

This is Janice's over grown herb garden and the contorted Filbert it has as a center piece. If you look close at the Filbert's branches closer to the Bay tree, you can see some Catkins (blooms). It will be interesting to see if it produces nuts this year.

 Another sure sign of spring is time for babies. This is a little buckling born last night to Ginger, one of our babies from last year.

He isn't named yet but he is friendly and so very cute, makes you want to just hold him forever.

Our little Ginger looks like any other mommy goat now, but she is unsure of things. but taking great care of the baby.

The little one weighed in at seven pounds. The next one due to kid is Brownie (Ginger's mother) and then Meg, Ginger's sister is due to kid last.

While out there, I have been wanting to remove three small Hemlock trees from the Bee Yard, so that was completed as well as Janice pruning most of the lower branches on the Cedar trees in that end of the property. I took the Hemlocks and gave the two lightest ones to the girls (goats) and the fullest one to the two boys.

WINTER ON THE HOMESTEAD

OK, I know winter does not officially start until day after tomorrow, but look at the pictures, it is here now. Hard to believe Christmas is less that a week away.
I was thinking that since it has been about three months since we posted, it would be nice to get an update done. I went out and started taking pictures, and this is an example of the pictures I was getting.

I had to take the camera back into the house and explore what someone had set my camera to, in order to change things so drastically. Someone had set the camera to effects, OK turned off and go re-take my pictures.

As can be seen we have a lot of water in the pond at present. I suppose that isn't a surprise since we have had continual rain for the last few weeks.

 Today is a partly rainy day and continual over cast.

 The critters come out when it stops raining long enough.

 Time to start pruning the fruit trees, this is an Asian Pear that has two varieties grafted to one tree. Of course one of these out grows the other a lot.

 This Bosc Pear also needs pruning very badly.

 The farthest tree in this picture is a Brooks Plum, also horribly overgrown.

The filberts are bare of leaves at present but loaded with Catkins, this is their time of year to be pollinated.

 Ghost is being retired this year. She has given us milk and babies for about seven years now, time to let the younger girls take up the slack.

Oh, I almost forgot we had the top of an Alder tree come down in a storm, you can see it laying in the pasture. We also had a fairly large cedar tree come down behind the shop on the neighbor's property. It fell down across the electric right of way, and onto the boy goats pasture fence. I forgot to retake these picture so you will have to be amazed with the weird pics I took first.

 In this picture you can not see the fence very well, and I have most of the stuff bucked u into rounds except the smaller stuff and the very bottom of the trunk which is still attached to the root wad.

This picture is of the root wad up the hill and still attached to about fifteen feet of log.