Getting more done around here

Yesterday we spent the entire day at home, after being up and gone from 5:00am on Saturday, we all needed a day without having to get into the van.

So we spent the morning making doughnuts-I cheated and just used canned biscuits. We used sugar for some and cinnamon sugar for the others. They were very tasty, but probably not something that we need to eat very often. This was much cheaper than what we can get at the store, as I used 4 cans of the store brand.

Then after a quick clean up, we sat here and planned out our orchard. We have 7 apple trees, several plums, peaches and pears, lots of blackberries, blueberries, and some grapes. After a little bit of a heated debate Richard and I finally figured out how we are(the boys and I) going to plant everything. We did get two trees in and Richard dug three holes, so the boys and I will be out there today to dig more.

The wonderful blessing of our day yesterday was the fact that we found we have a large quantity of compost on our land here.

The story of our place is that is was put up for auction, sold that day to someone, but even before that deal was dry on the paper it changed hands again. Well then it was sold again to a local gentleman, well this man it seems something and pushed a lot of dirt, trees and stuff from one place to another. We have always thought that the area up near the garden has an unnatural grade to it. Well yesterday we were up there looking around and Richard started digging, and found wonderful rich soil, not the clay stuff that we seem to have everywhere else. So all of my new trees will be getting lots of this healthy soil.

The best part I think, is that dirt is at least 2 feet above where our actually ground is. We have a lot of digging to do. I was going to buy a truck load of this same kind of top soil/compost from Co-Op and now I don't need to. God is so good.

The other project we have for this week is to quickly get the tiller running so that we can get the ground ready for our blueberries, these stalks are very much ready to be back into the ground and I am praying that I don't harm them in replanting them.

The biggest project, it is really bigger than planing all of these things. Is getting the pasture cut, I am tacking this massive job with a singe push mower. My plan is to try and cut roughly an acre a day. I am already behind. But we will be getting a second mower this week which will help, as I get the really high stuff and it is more like normal grass Thomas and Aric can take turns keeping the short stuff short. My goal is to keep at least three acres clear so that they have a place to run and play. That first acre and a half is where the orchard is going in, with the berries and grapes filling in around the edges.

I will try and post pictures later today.