Pruning and Building a Seed Rack.

So regardless of the continuing snow, wind, and cold weather, Sarah and I have begun preparing for spring.  A couple weekends ago we took a pruning class together at Cornell Plantations.  The guy that taught it was awesome, and Sarah had met him in another class she took on gardening.  The class lasted most of the day and began inside with a detailed account of the four defense systems of a tree and how they relate to each other and to pruning.  We went outside then and about 12 or so of us were turned loose on the shrubs and trees along the main pathway into the building!  Needless to say, we all started out relatively hesitantly.  We snipped little pieces here and there.  By the end, we were suggesting the removal of large limbs and even entire conflicting trunks!  It was great.  Sarah and I couldn't wait to get home and put our newly developed skills to use.

This shrub came with the house.  We like it, but obviously it was getting overgrown.  Time for a trim.

One of the rules of pruning is not to remove more than a third of the overall mass of the plant.  With this one, we decided to cut back the canopy and cut out some of the older and conflicting branches.

Yer supposed to be able to throw your hat through an apple tree when you're done pruning it.  With good aim and the right hat, I think this one would fit the bill.

This one we're pruning more for it's aesthetic.  When we bought the house, this poor guy was completely overwhelmed by pricker bushes.  We cut them back and now the tree has a pretty cool bonzai-like look to it.

With the pruning done, we turned our sites on the garden.  We're still a couple months from the last frost, so we headed inside.

 The shop got filled up again.  I wish there was more space and a dedicated place to work, but I have to admit, like everything else around this little homestead, I have a soft spot for it.

 

Sarah and I had drawn up and agreed upon a plan together and then went to Lowes or Home Depot for the wood and hardware.  I stopped at AgWay for some free pallets to finish off the shelves and save some money.

 

While I worked on cutting the cross beams to length and screwing on support sections Sarah put on all the brackets.

 

It was great to work together on the project and there's something about a woman with tools that gets my heart racing.

 

Especially when her work is on the level!

 

For no fee and a little elbow grease we got many square feet of wood for the shelves.  I had to remove a few nails first.

 

Some of the pieces needed to be squared up a little.  Honestly, they needed it.  It had nothing to do with my fixation of the shk shhhhk of a sharp No. 5 Stanley plane.

 

As always, we had lots of help and supervision.

 

And there she is.  Ready to go.  In the off season, she's sturdy enough to be used as bunk beds!

Apple season!

So, it's officially apple season here, in New York.  The weather is in full herky jerky mode.  A few days ago it was in the low 60s, yesterday it was in the upper 80s.  We had a week and a half where we had to water the garden, daily.  It's been raining now, off and on, for three days.  We love it all and secretly pray the fall on, but don't want to openly wish time to speed on.  Sarah and I are truly Fall's children.  Sarah loves to play on her sailboat, like an autumn leaf being blown by the Northern winds out and skirting across the water.  I rummage through my hats for for a little more warmth, and pull my flannels out of the back of the closet.

At Pat's I picked apples as people have for ages and used a bag that was probably made around the time the first apple was picked.

Here's a secret picture I took of Pat (she hates it when I pull the camera out and usually goes diving out of view) with all her creatures, great and small.

Erik and I met for a brew at the Crooked Rooster and then went up to Seneca Gun Sports to look at .22s.  Fall means small game season!  Rabbit stew and maybe some duck and turkey, too!

Our friends at Hopshire Farm celebrated their new New York licensure that allows them to sell beer by the pint!  The held a party and served beer in Ball pint jars and pulled pork sandwiches.  

I continue to split and stack wood for the winter.  Always trying to be more like the ant than the grasshopper!

This is the A-frame that I built for our cucumbers and squash plants.  The cucumbers love it, but the squash is rejecting it.

Our hop vines did pretty well for their first season.  They will get bigger and stronger every year.

I like my new knife and wanted to carry it.  There is no leather shop around here so I made a temporary sheath out of the box the blade blank came in.  

I'm gonna make some brandy, so I picked some apples...

And some more...

and some more...

and, finally, some more.

Sarah did some weed whacking under the apple tree.

Found this cool little arboreal trilobite in the tree.

I made this out of a pallet (part of a pallet to be accurate)

I made these with the help of master canner Sarah Bassman.  Thanks Babe-O!

We both agree that our home is looking pretty great.

Mothers Day Weekend

These photos are from this weekend and the days leading up to it.

Dingy helped me fix the riding mower.  The nice thing about having dogs is that one is never without a helper.

 This is from Matt's last day.  My first student teacher experience was... ok.  The kids really liked him and even wrote a song and a story for him.

 Matt adopted some of my less effective practices.  Here, two students are sitting in my chair.  Instead of asking them to move out of a chair they shouldn't be in in the first place, Matt is contorted around them to work on the computer, setting up the next lesson.  Hilarious.

 Eva helped me "prune" the smallest of the apple trees.  Veneta had lots of helpful advice, too, but didn't stick around for the picture.

 We went to the Plantations and Sarah took us on a wildflower walk.

 Mom and I competed for most pictures taken.  Here a vortex opens as I take a picture of Mom taking a picture of a flower.

 Wildflowers are much too small for me, so I wondered around IDing trees.  Ash.

 Beech

 Basswood

 White Poplar

 This is the larger of the two apple trees that I pruned.

 Had to have a beer before I cut all the branches off.

 Sarah mowed the lawn while I pruned trees and weed whacked.

Jonas helped with the pruning.  Veneta gave me lots of great advice.  We had a great weekend.  I didn't take any pictures of the Migration Celebration at the Ornithology Lab and all the awesome raptors we saw, including the merlin, eagle owl, kestral, golden eagle, barred owl, great horned owl, and some crazy peregrine falcon hybrid.  We went to the Farmers Market and Hopshire Farm Brewery, too.  Had another great weekend with the moms.