Category Archives: In the Orchard

Fall is Finally Here

Posted on by

0

I’m sitting at a table with an open window at my back and the breeze is glorious! The first three days of October were around 90 degrees which is crazy. Today is beautiful and we are even expecting some much needed rain on Monday so keeping my fingers crossed.

Dave usually walks Darcy in the morning and we both go in the evening. Dave’s requirement to report to work in northern Virgina two days every other week means it is hard to get his hours in so I’ve been walking Darcy in the morning when I can. She plops herself down when she looks back and sees people coming up behind us which is pretty much always since it is a well loved park we walk in. I literally have to drag her to get her going again. Then the people say “oh, she’s tired” and I let them know she just wants to see them. She runs around the dog park for an hour so I know walking with me isn’t causing her to be tired. I enjoy walking again and can feel it is good for my body.

Letting her have her little break.

The red chokeberry bush

 in my nature journal

The paw paw tree leaves start turning color quite early. I harvested quite a few this year. They are best when I just pick them off the ground before they start to rot too much. I gave some away this year. Some people had them before and were happy to have them again. One had never had a paw paw and was surprised she like it.

Our one little pepper plant has given us quite a few large peppers. I expect this is the last of it. I made some sweet red pepper relish with these. The guys ate it on their chicken salad sandwiches last night.

 

Spring is Here

Posted on by

0

We are actually having a long string of spring weather. Cool temps and rain. We could do without the rain but it is what it is. We haven’t had any freezing temps for about a month which is very unusual.

We were in Texas earlier this month for a family wedding. When we returned after six days away it was amazing to see how the garden had changed.

These photos are from last week.

Christmas fern is unfurling.

Virginia bluebells

bleeding heart

Trillium

Woodland stonecrop

Crabapple tree

Redbud tree – not of our young ones, but the old tree out front.

Since the above were all closeups I took a few more photos yesterday to share.

I’ve been mulching these beds with leaf mulch provided by the city of Staunton. It really helps keep down the weeds.

We have a few mallards hanging out in our waterways. If they stay and I can get a photo of them I’ll share it here.

Ice Storm

Posted on by

0

On November 15th we had a full day of sleet and freezing rain. We lost power around 3:00 in the afternoon.

Reading Mendelwitz’s Guide to Drawing by candlelight. It got very windy that night. Dave said he could hear the popping of tree branches.

We woke up to an icy landscape and more branches on the ground than I’ve ever seen. The above photo is the front yard. Somehow my photos have gotten out of order so bear with me.

You can see the icy tops of the white pines as the sun is coming up.

Our poor siberian elm in the back yard took quite a hit.

Branches everywhere…and leaves. Many of the trees still had leaves so when the ice clung to the leaves it was just too heavy and caused so many of the branches to break.

Above photo is looking toward the front yard from the back path to the house. That is the sunroom.

The pine is sagging from the weight of the ice. That building is the garage/cottage.

Ice on the asters

Dave is cooking french toast on the woodstove.

These branches fell on the fence – totally crushed it. This building is what we call the shed. It is two stories and is where we store most of our garden equipment.

Looking toward the house from the backyard.

So many big and small branches – and a deep layer of leaves. We are still cleaning it up.

Duke is having a hard time getting around with so much debris in his way.

Looking toward the orchard from behind the cottage.

The cable we had installed in this siberian elm in the front probably saved this tree.

A big pine branch fell on the power line to our house (seen in the photo above) so we were without power for 3 full days. Our neighbors lost power for 2 days.

Colin helped with the apple pie for Thanksgiving.

A branch fell on the fence in the front too.

You don’t get to see Smokey very much. He always moves around too much when I try to photograph him. This is about the best I can get. He likes to rub up against the dogs. You can see Dukes legs behind him. Smokey is ready to dash outside. He doesn’t come in the house but does come into the mudroom to eat and sometimes to sleep. I think he usually sleeps in the barn – even on frigid nights.

Spring ’18

Posted on by

0

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted because I broke my left wrist. I slipped on some ice in the driveway. It has slowed me down quite a bit. Good and frustrating at the same time.

Above is a spice bush we discovered back in March. I’d been keeping an eye out for one. This poor thing was engulfed by honeysuckle vine and bush. Dave came to it’s rescue.

You can see where the honeysuckle vine was wrapped around it’s trunk in the above photo.

It has a pretty little bloom.

A bloom on one of our Paw Paw trees.

The chokeberries we planted last fall finally bloomed a couple weeks ago. I was expecting more pollinators enjoying it. Instead, the ants seemed to love the blooms. Will have to investigate if that is normal.

They had a faint, sweet scent.

Samantha and her boyfriend, Luca, helped us unearth these willows back in February and March. I showed a photo and mentioned identifying them in my Feb 20 post. Fortunately, the honeysuckle that was on the tree hadn’t reached strangling proportions but they had to beat back a lot of it to reach the tree itself. Here, I caught a photo with it’s new leaves. A pretty yellow green that we can now identify in the distance when we look out the family room window.

On one of my walks around our property I found some blooms reaching out from a honeysuckle bush that I knew wasn’t honeysuckle. A couple days later Dave came to the rescue again and freed this Blackhaw Viburnum.

A beautiful white flower. I can’t wait to see this in bloom next year.

Another Blackhaw underneath honeysuckle. We’ll go after this another time.

Can you see the Blackhaw behind all this honeysuckle? Another that will have to wait.

These beautiful mushrooms arrive earlier last week.

Among the flowering Woodland Stonecrop

Len enjoys the cool grass on a pretty morning.

We’ve had a lot of rain this week. It started off with a bad storm Monday evening when we got over 2 inches of rain in an hour. The next day Dave noticed that our brick wall had finally tumbled. Fixing the driveway has just become a priority. It’s a good thing the plasterers finally came on Thursday and replastered the parlor ceiling and one wall in the front guestroom and patched up the walls in the dining room.

Afternoon of Pruning

Posted on by

0

Our daughters boyfriend, Luca, finished pruning this apple tree for us.

Luca, Samantha, Dave and I spent a couple hours yesterday afternoon hacking away at the honeysuckle between the pasture and the creek.

Forgot a before photo. This tree on the left was covered with honeysuckle.

We have so much more to do.

Above is the pile we created for the honeysuckle and the big tooth aspen we cut down some time ago. We are taking down the aspen because it is spreading into our meadow and most of it dies once it reaches a certain size anyway.

Once we clear, oh, another 20 feet or so of honeysuckle we will reach this tree. I can’t wait to get closer to identify it. It looks like it has an aspen growing through the middle of its many trunks.

I took all of the above photos this morning.

Took this photo this afternoon after I finished taking all this honeysuckle in the foreground away from the tree, top center. We’ll just keep chipping away at this invasive weed. Some of it is vines and some the bush variety. Many places on our property have both type. I also cut some out around the pines in the backyard and the maples along the road. I’ll need some help getting the roots out. Luca is coming back out later this week to help and Damian will help too once he recovers from a head cold.

Fruit Tree Pruning

Posted on by

0

I woke up early yesterday and took this photo of the old elms in our front yard.

In the afternoon Dave and I pruned our pear tree. This is in the front yard. You can see the elm branches above the pear tree. As usual I forgot to take a before photo. We were very aggressive – shortening the tree, cutting off the water shoots and generally thinning it.

While Dave finished taking down the mistake of a fence we put up a couple years ago (below), I started pruning this apple tree in the orchard. It has been very neglected.

Yes, forgot the before photo. The fence just didn’t look good and it wasn’t functional (keeping the dogs in the yard) because we haven’t put up a fence in the back. Plans for any fencing are on hold. Basically, the dogs go where they want. Duke stays on our property – frequently roaming into the brush beyond the pasture and coming home full of burrs. Len visits the neighbors – giving them a look like they are on his property. Given his weight gain I expect he also visits the property behind us where they host dinners and bluegrass dances every Saturday night.

two white pines in the back yard

This is the apple tree when I finished with it. Lots more to do. You can see what I cut off in the foreground.

Sadly, we no longer have chickens. Well, we have them but they are in the freezer and the stock pot. We started having a predator problem in the fall – well, maybe in the summer, we just didn’t notice until the fall.  This week we were down to just three hens. We locked them in the coop and waited for a relatively warm morning. That was today. Maybe we will try having chickens again when Dave retires in a few years.

Getting some much needed rain today. Hoping for a good snow fall in February.

Pines Along the Road

Posted on by

0

We had 17 white pines growing along our road and the electric company comes around every few years and tops them. It looks awful so we finally took them down over three weekends.

Before

After

Before

After

September 30 – a view of our two paw paw trees on the right and a crabapple tree on the left. Pines are behind these trees.

October 14 – two weeks later. The photo is taken later in the day and season but I think you can see how it has opened up the space.

another before with the pines behind these trees

and after although not quite the same view. The trees on the left are some of our very tall pear trees.

lots of branches to shred

Our pear trees are so tall we can’t pick the fruit. Dave gathered these from the ground. I cut out the good parts to eat and they were pretty tasty.

Dave got to use his new tractor.

stumps left behind

We planted 11 red chokeberry bushes along the fence.

This one is particularly loaded with berries. These shrubs have pretty white flowers in the spring, berries form in the summer and the leaves turn bright red in the fall. Berries are edible for humans and birds though not very tasty. Even the birds leave them until late winter when other food sources are scarce. I also read that the chokeberries are a good urban shrub and don’t mind road salt. We aren’t in an urban area but we do have a school up the road so we get salted at any sign of inclement winter weather.

So nice to have this done.

Some Fall Color

Posted on by

0

img_1892

I had trouble photographing these hawthorn berries. My friend and herbalist came over last weekend to harvest some of them. They make good medicine for the heart. We made sure to leave plenty for the birds.

img_1900

The paw paw tree is showing beautifully this year.

img_1901

Wood we stacked late last winter.

img_1902

A small stand of trees between the stacked wood and the paw paw. Not crazy about the pines – we have so much. In the undergrowth is an oak and what we think are some cherry trees. We pruned out the honeysuckle bushes.

img_1905

See the little brussel sprouts on the stalk at the base of the leaves. We had such a hard time with bugs this year. So hoping these sprouts remain unharmed.

img_1914

A little color from our serviceberry tree.

More Pruning

Posted on by

0

It was in the 60’s today so we took advantage of the warm temps and spent the afternoon pruning the gooseberry bushes, butterfly bush and elderberries. We also cleared some of the applewood we cut a couple weeks ago and stacked it on the wood pile.

IMG_0805

Gooseberries and butterfly bush before pruning

IMG_0809

and after

IMG_0806

another view

IMG_0807

Makes quite a difference. The gooseberries were extrememely overgrown. We did a harsh pruning. Hopefully, we will still get some fruit from them this year.