Around the yard: June

One of the first things we did when we moved here was kill a fourth of the apple trees. Which is to say that one of the four beautiful apple trees died a somewhat slow, painful death under our watch.

This week we finally got our act together. Ramont (and Jonathan) pulled out the dead one and we planted a self-pollinating apricot tree in its place. We also planted another dwarf honeycrisp apple tree at the end of the row, thus almost doubling the orchard :)

The Juneberries are in full swing now, appropriately, since it is June. The other afternoon I came out to see Prairie Girl and her dictatorial brother picking them with gusto.

For those who don't know, Juneberries are tiny with lots of fibrous material, and a little pop of juice. They take a looong time to pick and, to be perfectly honest, the payback is not huge. But its a great activity for the kids.

And the chickens loooove them.

Here's a quick look at the industrial garden. Which is never as big or bountiful or beautiful as I wish it was. I get serious garden-envy when we travel past other farmyards. I'm definitely still in the learning years.

A new thing we're trying this year is growing tomatoes on/through cattle panels. So far it's working very well. This freed up the cages for the peppers (which are not doing as well, but look like they might come through). The raspberry bushes are LOADED, and yesterday I found the first pinkish one, so we'll soon be in berry paradise here.

And finally from around the yard, I'd like to show you what was quite possibly the best "invention" of the week: hooking up the bike wagon (which Anna always wants a ride in) to Jonathan's trike. Excuse me, his tractor (he is tireless in correcting us on this).

Motivational speech for the journey ahead.

Heave, tug, PULL!

And that's a bit of what it looks like around here. I forgot to add the photos of all the trees that blew down a few weeks ago, so I'll do that in a future post (spoiler alert: Ramont has a new chainsaw!).