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
