Lunch cooking and fence walking

This morning Betsy and I made lunch together--she made a fabulous potato leek soup with plenty of cheese and sour cream.  I made a recipe new to me from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook--a spinach, walnut tofu loaf.  It came out more casserole-y than loaf-y yet it was delicious and well-received.

Olivier sets up buckets with Sophia looking on

This afternoon our group went out to check the pasture fences.  This involved collecting the tools needed:  loppers or hand-pruners to cut out plants that could short out the electric fence, a fence-tester to check the charge, fencing material such as posts and insulating clips and other various squeezing or smashing tools.

Fencing wars

Olivier left Caitlin, Brian and I to fix a section while he and Sophia continued ahead from the morning work.  We had to remove and reset "t-posts" that had shifted with the freezing of the ground and clip back the multi-flora brambles.  We tightened up the lines and checked the charge--it wasn't that good.  I got myself distracted in cutting back brambles (these look like a cross between a wild rose and a blackberry bush but give neither beautiful flowers nor tasty fruit--just prolific pricker-laden canes).  We regrouped after a while and moved across the street.  I set out on my bramble demolition while others worked on the wiring.  Time flies when you're having fun and soon the fence walk was over.

This evening, I went up to the orchard with Tyson, the assistant grower.  He has had experience working in orchards and has agreed to help me with my independent project.  We found five live trees from a planting in 1999.  There were also many 3 or 4 year old trees--many of them "girdled" by mice or other rodents.  I took notes on what these trees need what plus absorbed much of the orchardist's lingo.  Here are some gems I am going to read up on during our long road-trip tomorrow:

chill requirement
pollination compatibility
different pruning cuts: thinning cuts, heading cuts
graft unions
the terminology for different branches
the 4 D's of pruning (dead, damaged, diseased, disoriented)