Watering In Apple Trees

Note to self - don't water in trees in high wind without having your trees staked! I was watering in some of the trees in the orchard that weren't staked and the wind just pushed them right over. So yesterday we finished staking the trees and also finished running the layflat hose. Today I hope to run the irrigation tubing for the emitters. It was so hot yesterday (100.3F) that we had to stop at 3PM.  It was just too hot to continue.

Orchard/North

We completed planting the north side of the orchard yesterday. The wind blew the dirt into our eyes the entire day and sandblasted us relentlessly, leaving us squinting, red faced and raw. But we knocked out all of the trees that were planned. We have about 20 extra trees that we'll put in today to wrap up the planting and then we'll call the planting officially completed. We did stake some trees yesterday and used some special rubber-bands that have a T on them. It took us a while to get the technique down but I think we'll be able to get that completed over a few days without a problem. Besides the wind we did have the auger chain break while trying to dig out a rock. I had lots of repair links on hand, but no additional chain, so we were delayed while Sharon ran to town to get some more chain.  But overall, the day went well, even if by the end of the day everyone was very tired both physically and mentally and wanted to see the last tree go into the ground.

New Orchard!

We've been planing a PYO orchard for several years now, and after all of the prep-work, which started in 2011, we've finally started planting our trees.  This year we're putting in about 800 trees and we've left some space for some different planting techniques next year.  We put in 7 varieties of trees that are a couple years old and well feathered (have branches). The planting has been going great, but the weather has pushed us back several times and we haven't completed our fence or our irrigation system. But overall, the project has been going very smoothly - as Sharon said, "we never have projects that run this smoothly." We should finish planting today if things continue to go smoothly.

Calves

Good thing we sorted and moved the cows.  They started calving as soon as they were moved and the calves are coming one right after the other.  All of them look great so far, although one cow who has had issues nursing calves in the past is still having her issues. I'm about to go down and stand in the rain/snow and watch to see if her calf is latching on enough. The calf was on yesterday, but today that calf looks mighty tired so we'll keep an eye no him.  Her calf last year was given goats milk because she wasn't nursing it well enough, and then the calf stayed with the goats as she grew.  We call her goat-calf because she hung with the goats so long she probably thinks she's a goat, and lets you walk right up to her and pet her just like a goat too.  We don't want another goat calf though. Bottle feeding isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Sorted Cattle Today

I cut the bull from the cows this morning, then cut the steers from the heifers and sent them in with the bull.  We'll feed the bull and the steers together until the bull goes out with the cows and heifers.  Except for having to move through the mud, everything went easy and gentile... for a change.

Snow on High Tunnel Sides - What to do

I sure would like to know what others are doing when snow piles up on their auto-roll-up sides. I think for us the snow has been a much bigger issue than wind. We've had 2 issues with snow on the sides.  First is that the snow lays on the sides and when the sides open the snow makes the circumference of the pipe much larger.  This causes the opener to make fewer revolutions to open which then causes the sides to opens to the ribbon board which jams the motor until the fuse is blown.  The other is that the snow holds the sides closed until the motor blows the fuse.  Neither of these situations is good since they can damage the inserts that connect to the pipe and attach to the motor, and/or break other parts which we've had to fix.  Hard lessons to learn, but nothing catastrophic yet thank goodness.

Snow Storm Calf

We had our first calf of the season, born in the snow storm last night.  She (the calf) and the cow both look like they're doing fine.  We'll try to tag her today before she gets too much run in her.