Will and I have been busy cutting and splitting all of the nice wood we had piled around the yard and driveway. In fact, we ran out of room to put it! Not only is the woodshed full, but also a 8’x12′ stall in the goat barn, piled eight feet high. But we had more wood. So I suggested Will put the pallet forks on the tractor and bring up the two pig houses which were mostly unused in the cow pasture. Ah ha! He did and so far we have one stacked plumb full and the other nearly so. What a wonderful feeling! All the wood was seasoned, split, and put up dry so it’ll burn very nicely.

We got the pregnancy blood test results back on our cows; only two were bred. We’d kind of figured that. Luckily, Will’s friend, Mark, offered to loan us his registered Black Angus bull. So Will drove over and brought the bull home. Hopefully the unpregnant cows will soon be bred so at least we’ll have calves from them next year, albeit later than we had hoped.

I’ve been canning like mad. After all, 900 pounds of tomatoes is a LOT. I’ve done salsa, barbecue sauce, plain chopped tomatoes and enchilada sauce this last week. Next I’m making a big batch of multi-colored salsa using Jaune Flamme tomatoes as a base. They’re wonderfully flavored, golden tomatoes so I can’t wait. I mix some red paste tomatoes in with them as well as multi-colored sweet peppers and a few jalapeños. Yum!

Take a look at these wonderful Keepsake apples. We’re so pleased with our young orchard.

The winter apples are now ripe and we have a tree load of great Keepsake apples to bring in and store in the basement for winter eating. I’ve got canned and fresh Frostbite and Chestnut Crab apples too, so we have plenty for fresh baking. I made apple crisp from the Frostbites two days ago and was real happy with both the taste and texture of the apples. No mushy apples here! Now I’m making a BIG crisp as the 8″x8″ pan didn’t last long at all.

Our chickens enjoy running around in our big orchard. In the background, check out the old pig houses, chuck full of split firewood.
I think the turkeys look pretty as they rustle for unpicked corn in the corn patch.

Our turkeys are enjoying foraging through our corn patches and the chickens love running through the orchard, eating blow down fruit, bugs, and fresh grass. Not only do they stay healthy that way but really enjoy life. Just like we do. — Jackie

15 COMMENTS

  1. Angela, as Jackie said wait until spring to move them, but what you should do now is a procedure called root pruning. Push your shovel full depth in the ground all around the trees at the drip line. Just push it in, you don’t need to dig. Then water the trees with a root stimulator that does not contain nitrogen. Really soak them. If it is hot and dry this fall, water until the ground freezes. Roots grow in the winter. What you are doing is cutting the existing roots and forcing the trees to grow new feeder roots at the point where the old ones are cut. In the spring, well before bud break, when you dig them out (dig at the root pruning spot) you will have a mass of small feeder roots. Go all around your trees at the root pruning cut, this time pushing your shovel all the way in (should be easy)and under the tree, pry up as you go. You will probably cut more old roots but that’s OK. It may take more than one go around. Eventually the tree will come out with a root ball of those new feeder roots. Have your new wide holes ready, filled with root stimulator solution, keep the root ball together, put your trees in, add the dirt and make sure it is settled, and they probably won’t be set back at all. And be sure to keep them well watered. Most plants, especially trees, die or don’t do well due to lack of water. Once they are established you can cut down on the water, but not at first. The soil must be saturated down to the bottom of the root ball and a bit deeper, but you don’t want waterlogged soil. There are inexpensive soil moisture meters, or you can buy a soil probe and look at the cores, or you can use a shovel to dig a small hole down to the depth of the root ball. You can save those trees.

    • Thanks. I was thinking the fall would be better as I live in the deep south, and our winters are rainy and seldom drop below freezing temps. Once spring gets here it gets hot and usually dry.

      • The most important thing is to have that root ball full of feeder roots. So you might transplant successfully in the fall if you had done the root pruning a year ago or in very early spring, and if your trees were dormant. If your spring is hot and dry your trees will for sure need a reliable, steady source of water for several years before you can cut back on water. If your soil is high in clay and sand or rocky your trees will benefit from a lot of organic material mixed in their new planting holes, as well as the root stimulator. Organic material holds water and supplies nutrients. Mulch out to the drip line will help maintain soil moisture. If you look back at Jackie’s photos of her fruit trees you’ll see that they put manure around the trees out to the drip line – good nutrient source and also helps keep the soil moist. Just keep whatever mulch you use at least 6 inches away from the tree trunks. I forgot to mention pruning the trees before you move them. They should be cut back about a third.

  2. There is nothing quite like a full shed of dry split fire wood to make me feel secure! So much better than money in the bank in my opinion! Looks as though you’ll have leftover wood to go into next year- always a good thing!
    Boy you keep busy! I love reading about all your endeavours!

    • I, too, love the stuffed sheds of firewood. We now have about three years’ worth and David keeps bringing more home from work at Voyageur Log Homes and Will just cut up another big pile of logs he brought in from the woods this spring. But wood’s like food; I’ve been without a couple of times way back when and don’t want that to ever happen again.

  3. Miss this gal! Was at her homesteading seminar this past summer. Learned so much and a pleasure to meet her!How far is the kid’s cabin from yours, Jackie?

    • David and Ashley’s cabin is about 1/4 mile as the crow flies or 1/2 mile by driveway from our house. Miss you too!

  4. Hey Jackie. I see at the top here, there is still a link to “ask Jackie” a question, but not seeing where the answers are posted anymore? I’ve recently been reading all your articles on fruit trees published in some back issues of BHM I recently ordered. Which is how I found out we did about everything wrong. We didn’t make nice enough planting holes, but mostly we didn’t water nearly enough, only a few times a month over our long, hot, dry summer that first year, and never since then. Now, 3 years later, we have trees (those which miraculously survived) that look exactly the same as when we planted them… about 3-4′ tall with just a few branches with a few leaves. I want to move them to an area where we can water them better, but am just wondering if you think they’ll survive if we dig them up and move them?

    • They will probably survive the move just fine. But unless you live in the Northwest, I’d wait to move those trees until early next spring as the survival rate is much better then.

      • Thanks for the advice! I was thinking fall would be good because we live in the deep south and our winters are wet and mild, seldom dropping below freezing. But waiting for spring would be fine too.

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