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Monday, December 17, 2012

The Orchard - Part 1

Well......way back in July, Nate was looking around the outside of the hardware store he works at and noticed something.  There were about a dozen apple trees still out front that hadn't sold from the spring tree sale.  And they were marked down to 50% off!  Being the smart and thrifty man he is - he put two and two together.  Picking up the phone he called Denise.

"Hello, Honey-Puff," he said.  "Would you like 11 apple trees to plant up on the farm.  We could start an orchard and raise happy little apples."  

"Oh Cookie-Bear,"  she screamed with delight.  "I would love 11 apples trees to plant on the farm in the middle of the hottest month of the year." 

"Super-duper," came Nate's reply back to her.  "I'll bring them home tonight.  By the way....they all look a little sick from being in their gallon containers for the past 5 months....but I'm sure we can pull them through."

So off went 6 Winesap Dwarfs, 4 Yellow Lodi Semi-Dwarfs, and 1 lonely Yellow Delicious Dwarf to the farm....and there was much rejoicing.

Here are some pictures of the progress.  It took a few days but we got them all in the ground.  We mixed Alpaca dung (thanks Kim and Scott) along with rotted hay in each hole as a kind of "fertilizer cocktail".

 
 We spotted this momma and son prairie dog digging holes down the hill and decided to put their skills to work in the orchard.

 The momma was happy to dig....the son....not so much.

 Pretty good soil here.  It's been a manured hay field for the past 100 years or so.

Happy trees or happy girl or both?

 Alpaca poo and hay....who wouldn't love that slurried yumminess!

 Each tree got a cedar post for support (not installed when this pic was taken), hardware cloth to protect the truck from critters, and two pieces of 10' x 5' wire mesh (the kind used in concrete floors for strength) for it's own personal fencing system.  No way deer are getting near these guys!

All the trees in!  A beautiful sky to end a hard day of work!


Part 2 Coming Soon!

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