Thursday, July 28, 2016

Week 8 - Missing Blog Posts

Where have the daily blogs gone? Our days have a fairly predictable pattern. We go over to Mom G's in the morning and work. The kids break at 3 or 4 to swim. I come home to cook dinner. We go to bed.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe these will suffice for the missing posts. 

Activities not shown in photos: running errands for ourselves and Mom G, grocery shopping for both, household chores for Mom G, laundry for all of us, more organizing....

Early on I blogged the day we uncovered the greenhouse. We then moved on to working on the trees in the power lines and driveway....but this week...Michael and Alex liberated the greenhouse. To refresh  memories - this is what the spot looked like on Monday. 
Not really "Before" because you couldn't see it at all before. LOL 

They are holding ONE ROOT of one Cork Elm
 When we're all done, I envision being able to plant some pretty flowers in this bed. The roses will be back. We may eventually get the trees out of the greenhouse....they've taken over everywhere. NEVER plant Cork Elm.  Stacia and I were so inspired we decided to tackle some greenery which is overgrowing its bounds. Mom G told us they are monbretia, and you can see below  they DO have a pretty little red flower. The problem comes when they are tangled in berry vines, taking over garden spots, spilling into the easement, and taking over the driveway.

These bloomed before we arrived. It was time to tackle them....we cut them back, careful to leave the bulbs, and we did the same up the fence line. They're pretty ugly when he flowers are gone and the greenery is browning. 

We uncovered an address! All the greenery we've not touched are grape vines.....we'll work on them after we harvest the grapes. 

Cork Elm roots are tough....but not as tough as Stacia.

I am so pleased with how the kids have stepped up to help. Michael is a great supervisor, and he is working his tail off too, but there is no getting around the fact he pays a heavy price and has to stop before he would like to stop. The kids pitch right in and pick up any slack Michael and I leave. It really does my heart good, I need to be more like them. Here Stacia and Alex have finished the fence line. I envision a fresh coat of paint when time allows. No fence showed when we arrived. 


The apple tree Michael pruned in June is bearing.... a few branches of plums have been grafted in.....

In order to keep Michael off the ladder, I conquered my fear of ladders to pick some plums for Mom  

 This is a good place to mention neighbors. Three have stopped by repeatedly to chat and offer encouragement.  We've been loaned tools, given advice, offered RV spots and the use of burn piles. Would you believe one neighbor stopped to complain? He rents nearby and prefers the yard overgrown. It appears he's been helping himself to fruit and would like to continue to do so. We're nice. We'll share.  BUT we aren't leaving your favorite tree tangled in the power lines so  you can poach fruit without being seen. ::snort::  Let us know you'd like to wander through the self-pick oasis - if Mom G doesn't have plans for it - help yourself.

Below is an amazing photo. I had no idea Michael was going to deal with this. To the right is the shed and in the back of the photo is the back of the greenhouse. This area was TOTALLY taken over by berries, grape vines and Cork Elm. One couldn't walk through here. The path has re-emerged. It still looks a bit overgrown - as the grape arbor was to the left and over a path. It didn't stand up to the weight of the bears. But we are looking at a huge crop of grapes.  We'll look at fixing that and cutting back grapes later in the year.


 This is the kind of brush we've been clearing in our search for the fence line. We have removed so many cork elm that we can now see the neighbors roof line....Stacia picks all the berries she can reach before we continue working in this section.

We found a 3rd wheelbarrow

 A perk of working here is the amazing, all-you-can eat, fruit buffet. This week we've had YUMMY apples, a couple kinds of berries, a nectarine or two, and plums to choose from. 

I suggested a machete, but it has proven difficult to find a real one in America. 

The chair around the fire feels really good at night. 

Nolan isn't in a lot of these photos as he had a couple of days off. Off from us - he is working for some college friends who live in the area.