You Don't See That Every Day

The summer has been a dry one for us, which means a bit more watering on the trees and garden. We are finally seeing a lot of garden produce for harvesting. Cherry tomatoes anyone??  My farmer has been preparing the orchards for harvest. This includes a lot of dust. He comes home each night after being on the tractor, with enough dirt on him to start another garden. He is getting the ground as smooth as possible, as stick free and weed free as possible, so when we go to harvest the nuts, we aren't picking up anything else. I think I heard him say we are just about done with watering our trees, and the nuts should start dropping soon. In some countries they actually go out and shake the trees or pick the nuts by hand. Here we get to use machinery which I think is a lot quicker and easier.

  The last few Saturdays at the farm have been busy ones. We've had a number of people out weeding the garden, stacking firewood, hoeing garden areas, planting garden areas, watering garden areas, cutting grass, and brush.... And we are almost done with suckering and painting our newest orchard. We're down to the last six rows (480 trees). It may sound like a lot to some but considering all the rows we have done I'm excited that we're down to just a few! After this Saturday I'm hoping to move on to another Farm project When my dad was alive he was in charge of when to plant the garden, and other Farm chores around the place. This year has been a bit of a learning curve for all of us, figuring out when to plant, how to repair things, and just do all the millions of jobs my dad did out on the farm. For some reason in some of the crops we planted not everything came up. I feel like we would have been enjoying fresh lettuce and some other vegetables by now. It was almos...

 This past weekend we started painting trees. It was like fingerpainting when we were little. Dip your hands into a glob of paint and splatter it all over. Except this time we were using gloves, and we had a mark to aim for - the tree trunk. We paint the trees the first 2 years to keep them from getting sunburned and to protect them from sprays. In some orchards you will see collars around the young trees. We looked at this option and decided it wasn't for us. The suckers till grow up those collars, and you have to remove each by hand to the get suckers that grow there. Plus that bark doesn't get accustomed to the sun if it has a collar on it.  Painting the trees is one job my kids don't mind doing too much. It goes quickly and we can have fun while we work. We wear a rubber glove on one hand with a cotton glove over it. We dip that gloved hand into the small bucker of paint we carry and coat the lower half of the tree. 5 seconds or so per tree and on to the next one. Thank...

 Three weeks have passed since surgery, and it has been a humbling time.  I am not supposed to lift anything over 10 pounds. My family has been extra cautious, not letting me lift anything remotely heavy. For someone independent like me, that has been tough. As the weather finally turns nice, and the outdoor projects call my name, I chafe at not being able to lift heavy things. I have things to build! I have dirt and compost to move! I have brush to haul. I have things to do!! But I am trying to be good and wait the full 6 weeks for healing. Because really, my family needs me back to full health by then too, not relapsing because I was impatient.  Thankfully I am healing well, and there will be no more treatments needed. I am looking forward to hiking and running again, and being back to 100% So out in the orchard this week, I was the designated driver. The task this time was to spread fertilizer on the new orchard, by hand. We did not broadcast it (fling by machine allll...

  There was a time I did not go to the doctor for regular checkups. There was a time my husband did not go to the doctor for regular checkups. Pretty sure that time is now past us.  I listened to that little voice inside of me earlier this year and made my appointment, and actually went to it. I am so glad I did. As I talked with the doctor about changes in my health, she delved a little deeper past the regular tests. And she discovered the cause of some of the changes was cancer. That was not something I was expecting to hear at my age. Thankfully my doctor is thorough. The cancer is low grade and early stage, which is another blessing from going in when I did and talking to her.  Surgery is this week (April 13) and that should take care of all of it, without needing any further treatment. We are holding onto that hope until we hear otherwise. I don't write this to gain sympathy but to let you know how important it is to pay attention to changes and to ask the doctor ab...

  Spring is here. The daffodils are the herald for me. When I see those blooms, I know it's spring and warmer weather is on its way. They also remind me of my dad. Each spring he would send out the notice that they were in bloom, and he would tell us to come and cut a bouquet. If I had gotten married in March instead of May, I would have carried a bouquet of daffodils. This past weekend we finished planting the last of the hazelnut trees. Except for the pollenizers. In our orchards we have two main varieties of hazelnut trees, Wepster and McDonald. We have nearly 5,000 of each variety. Interspersed among those two varieties are the pollenizers, of the York and Yamhill variety. These are extra pollenizers as insurance for the early pollen and the late pollen. Well, this past weekend we finished replanting the last of the Wepster and McDonalds. Our Montana relatives were visiting and took the time to help us out, which made the task much more fun. And to my daughter's delight, an...