Friday, February 22, 2008

Hello... Hello... Is anybody out there?

Okay, I knew it was going to be tough to keep my posts going during this time of the year and I was right. Busy, Busy, Busy!

Well it looks like I'm not going to be planting the apple trees after all. After spending all the time and effort to line everything out and even dig the holes that I was going to plant them in, I actually decided it would be good to go inspect the trees up close and personal instead of driving by on the highway and looking at them about 100 yards away. Here is a picture of one of them.



Well, I should have looked at them much earlier! The trees were very neglected and after taking some pictures and posting them on a discussion board the consensus was that I would be better off starting from scratch with 1 year old trees than I would be trying to transplant the trees I was planning on. Sure they were big, but due to the neglect they were not going to produce many apples and were in such need of pruning that they would take as long to get pruned into shape as it would take a new tree to grow from scratch and start producing apples. I was pretty disappointed because I had thought this would be a perfect way to get a jump start on some habitat improvements on my property. From a long term perspective though, those trees were never going to become mature producing apple trees. Oh well, I might still put a few smaller trees out this year or I might just use my tractor to cover up the big holes that I dug!

Eli is getting to be quite the handful lately. He is running everywhere (I don't think he knows how to walk, he ALWAYS runs) and pretty much getting into everything. He is nearly always happy though and really seems to enjoy being outside as much as possible. I'm really looking forward to the years ahead and spending time with him in the outdoors.

Hope everything is going well for anyone reading this. Maybe I'll do better posting in March and April. I've got some big plans for work on the property coming up in late April, lots of planting and plowing.

That's it for now. Nathan

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Where did January go?!!!

Well, January flew by in record time!

I started a diet and have lost about 10lbs so far with about 10 more to go.

I was able to go out to the land last Saturday afternoon and check the cameras and fill the feeders. Nothing too exciting on the trail cameras, I have several young bucks that are regularly visiting and I had a few pictures of a mature buck and that is for sure an improvement over last year when I only saw 1 buck on camera until October. Here is the nicest buck I got a picture of this visit.




I have 30 - 5 foot square holes dug for the apple trees I'm buying in a couple weeks. I have a guy lined up to dig them up with a backhoe and I'm expected to end up with somewhere between 30 and 40 trees! They are 7 year old apple trees in several different varieties and most are already producing apples. I'm getting a good deal on them but the trick is going to be getting them dug up and transplanted without losing too many of them. I'm planting 18 of them around the house and the rest of them down at the land in 2 different groups. I'll hopefully have some pictures on my next post.

Work is going good, a little hectic but just a couple more months of busy season and then it will slow back down a little hopefully.

That's about it on my end.

Nathan