Working Weekend

11:43 PM, 21 March 2010
Temperature: 44 F, cloudy with occasional rain

Yesterday started off bright and warm while we went into the hills to fetch this week's set of trees:

• five harglow apricots
• four arkansas black apples on M7 rootstock
• ten dolgo crab apples on M7 rootstock

We have discovered that the tree guards which we have been using are not quite up to the task of preventing occasional curious nibbles from sheep, so we shifted the pasture with the lambs so as to cut that flock off from any trees for the time being.

We purchased a bag of alfalfa seed and a hand cranked seed spreader, which will speed up sowing over the well grazed area.

The trees were planted, starting by digging holes to the north of the workshop, where the apricots were planted. The reason is that the horticulturalist at the nursery said that shading them should keep them from awakening too early in springtime, and falling to late frost. The apples were all planted in well lit areas, since they are generally hardier plants. We would like all these trees at full size, so depending on their prospects we may well bury the grafting union so that they can root on their undwarfed scion stock.

When we were purchasing seed and so on we also placed an order for several rolls of hardware cloth (a metal fencing material of grillwork, one by two inches at each division) from which we will fashion the taller tree guards which will not only defend trees from the depredations of sheep, but deer as well.

Saturday's warm start necessitated some watering of the planted trees, but the weather grew progressively cloudier and rain started to fall as a cold front hit us. This had the benefit of soaking the ground with less work involved in rolling a barrel of water around to where the water could be conveniently siphoned to the trees. Towards the end of the day we saw that some of the south flock had escaped and were gorging themselves on the lush pasture, not basically a problem, but we managed to persuade them back into their enclosure so that we wouldn't have wandering sheep everywhere.

Sunday was a lot more tranquil as we recovered from our labours of Saturday, but there was more shifting of sheep pastures to afford them better access to the pasture in general. We also arranged to purchase a good quality crusher and press for small batch fermentation from a winery in Centralia. We also walked to our neighbours to invite them to a Memorial Day party we intend to hold. The invitation seems to catch most of them by surprise, but staying on good terms with the neighbours is conducive to a tranquil life.

During our walk we took a good look at some scotch broom which is infesting one corner of our property. According to weed information it is quite susceptible to grazing control, as well as simply uprooting. Fortunately, we have the grazing animals with which to do this.