Today Kiyoshi and I were in charge of making lunch. We thought about an April Fool's surprise (spending our morning doing our favorite crafts instead of making lunch) but then decided to make tuna melt. We had a mongo-sized can of tuna and some beautiful chard and some left-over split pea soup. Oh, and just a few carrots in the root cellar.
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| Carrots in their third bath |
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| Freshly chopped and ready for eating |
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| Tuna salad with rainbow chard sprinkles |
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| Tuna-melt, all toasty and melty |
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| Bowls and spoons |
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| Pea soup, reheating |
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Grilled cheese on the grill
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In the afternoon, our group returned to Blue Ox farm for more blueberry pruning. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this work. The main idea for pruning blueberries, as it was for apple trees, is to remove unnecessary wood in order to stimulate the production of fruit. Unlike an apple tree, which has a large trunk and branches that produce fruit, blueberry bushes have these "canes" tha sprout up and branch. The typical life of a cane is four years, so a healthy bush has several canes of differing ages. So here's the approach I take: approach the bush and remove all the snow and grass around the base. This uncovers any small new growth sprouts and all the invasive tree sprouts and non-blueberry sprouts. Choose three or four of the best new growth, clip out the rest. then look for the two-year-old canes, trim 'em up if they have dead bits or are sticking out too far into the pathway. If they have a lot of side-sprouts, take a few of them off. Then look at the older and oldest canes, flick off any dead twigs and then look for spindling, non-vigorous branches to take out. This is my interpretation production pruning; a homeowner might be more interested in a beautiful shape.
The black lambs were out and about today. ACK, they are cute!
In this little clip, you can see the two lambs, baa-ing for their momma. Right at the end, she returns their call and they both start! Wish I had captured more!
And the little white lamb, a few days older, is looking into the manger:
In the afternoon, our group returned to Blue Ox farm for more blueberry pruning. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this work. The main idea for pruning blueberries, as it was for apple trees, is to remove unnecessary wood in order to stimulate the production of fruit. Unlike an apple tree, which has a large trunk and branches that produce fruit, blueberry bushes have these "canes" tha sprout up and branch. The typical life of a cane is four years, so a healthy bush has several canes of differing ages. So here's the approach I take: approach the bush and remove all the snow and grass around the base. This uncovers any small new growth sprouts and all the invasive tree sprouts and non-blueberry sprouts. Choose three or four of the best new growth, clip out the rest. then look for the two-year-old canes, trim 'em up if they have dead bits or are sticking out too far into the pathway. If they have a lot of side-sprouts, take a few of them off. Then look at the older and oldest canes, flick off any dead twigs and then look for spindling, non-vigorous branches to take out. This is my interpretation production pruning; a homeowner might be more interested in a beautiful shape. 
I had to stop a minute after reading your title for this post. Thinking the lambs might be tasty, but a little soon...
ReplyDeleteThose lambs definitely rate near the stratosphere on the cute scale.
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