Locust trimming, spraying, and pecan planting

Locust trimming

I finally got to trimming the locust trees.  There are a lot of locust trees here!  The locust tree beetle is really doing a lot of damage to these trees.  I even saw some of the bugs!

Lots of trimmings!  I wanted to burn these but they are too green!  I will let dry a bit before burning.

Spraying the trees!

I didn't get any pictures of it, but I sprayed the bejesus out of the trees!  Not much to see anyway.  I sprayed the locust with dormant oil mixed with carbaryl (sevin), dormant oil on the remaining fruit trees, and deer repellant on the white pines, forsythia, choke berry/cherry, and elderberry!  Whew.  Lots of spraying!  Really.  It took most of a day!

Northern Pecans and Hican planting

Seems like I am missing a weekend here somewhere, but I can't figure out where, so I am sticking this in here!   The pecans and hicans arrived!  They are not of great quality - the roots are barely formed and the grafts are still wrapped.  I hope they survive!  

I had to plant these deep to accept the long root stem on these trees.  Also, I unwrapped the grafts, that seemed very new...

At 60 feet apart, it took the top half of the field to hold all of these!  I will need to cage these so that the deer don't damage and so the farmer doesn't run them down when he makes hay!

Deer damage

Deer damage to the new pines!

Dammit!  Not even 2 weeks in and the deer have found the pines and begun their assault!  UGH!!

I plan on spraying some deer repellant when the weather is suitable.  Won't be long now that I will be able to spray some dormant oil on the fruit trees too.

Big melt off

Fast Melt 

The snow didn't last long.  Weather warmed up quickly and the snow was melted off the roads within a day!  The rest of it took longer, but still most was gone quickly

Had some fun watching the snow melt off the roof of the garage!  Look at the icicles!

First round of tree planting for the year and a big snow

First Tree shipment has arrived!

My shipment of birch trees (27), poplar trees (60), maple trees (60), bald cypress (55), and white pine (100) arrived!  Planting time!

Hard to believe all of those trees fit in those two boxes?

They are really small trees!  In fact I thought they forgot to ship some of them, but discovered that they were all there - most in that little bag on the right!

The weather was - mostly cooperative

The white pines are planted every 8 ft apart on the steep hill

The bald cypress are down there in the swamp

Another view of the pines - none of the maples, birch, or poplar.  Nothing to see really, they are so small!

I rushed to get them all planted before Tuesday when a big snow storm was predicted...  I got all the trees planted just in time - I was out late Monday evening.  I tried to leave Tuesday morning, but the snow was coming down too hard to make it. So I spent a week at the farm!

Over a foot of snow!

Fruit tree trimming time

Yay!  100,000 miles!

I lucked out and caught this picture as my car made 100,000 miles!

Yes, I took the picture while driving, but it's ok - the cruise control was on! 

Tree Trimming Time

Lots of trees to trim!   Most are looking pretty good.  I trimmed a bit less aggressively than previous years since they are get closer to their ideal structure.  

Removed the trimmings to keep the disease and pests out of the orchard.

All done!

Grape vine pruning time!

But first, more plastic stuff!

I printed out some more shop stuff to try out this week.  I made a handle for the mill head screw and a handle for the tensioner on the belt-grinder.  Both worked!  The mill-handle is not strong enough though.  Also, it could be a bit bigger to give more mechanical advantage.  I will have to redesign a bit.

This is based on a thingiverse design for a beertap handle.  I did some extensive changes to come up with this.  Pretty much only used the threaded portion of the original design.  The threads fit perfectly though!

This part actually helps quite a bit too.

Obviously, this part needs longer arms!  There is not much mechanical advantage as-is.  I guessed the center shape and it turned out damn near perfect!

I think I will move the nut portion to one end and extend the arm length a bit.  Maybe I will use a bearing instead of those plastic handles too - they don't help much.

Grape Vine Pruning and Cordon Training

The grape vines are finally big enough to train onto the arbor!  I was able to move most of the vines into some kind of cordon system.  A few were still too small or not cooperative, but most are moving in the right direction.  I did notice some diseased areas though, so I will need to keep up the fungicide and I plan on fertilizing again this year.  Also, I plan on some kind of fence defense against the wildlife onslaught.