More Brush Burning

Next day, still a burn day so we got the brush from the east orchard done.

Burning Brush

Started to burn the west orchard brush piles today. That's where the ewes will go first for lambing so we need the brush gone.

June Pasture

The pasture is spotty. The combination of the cold spring and the problems with irrigation are making it hard to grow good grass this year. But what is growing is good quality.


Looks like we might have some apples. The June drop has not happened yet but so far we do still have some fruit.

Apple Blossoms & Mt. Lamborn

Mt. Lamborn is looking nice. Looks like a good water year.


Our apple trees are all blooming now. Hope we get some fruit this year.

Brush Rake & Burning Brush

Larry brought up his brush rake to push the brush from our orchard into burn piles. You can't see it from here but the entire orchard is full of brush from pruning.


Larry on the tractor, Ken & Daniel with the brush rake.


Detail of the brush rake. This one is sturdy and flexible enough to float over most of the rocks.



In use, pushing brush into a pile for burning.


Starting the burn as soon as the pile is large enough but not too large.



Once it's going Larry uses the rake and tractor to pile more brush on top.




We got the east side of the orchard cleared in about an hour and a half. Then spent the rest of the day picking up the firewood . I got all teh electric fences out and ready to string up so we are very close to turnout of the pregnant ewes.

Burning Brush

We're late getting the brush out of the orchard. We burn the prunings and we got one pile burned today.



This is the view down the orchard. Still not much grass!

Winter Pruning

The west side of the orchard has been completely pruned this year and a majority of the east side has also been pruned. For some of the trees it has been nearly 20 years since they were pruned last. There is a huge amount of brush and wood. We're trading the wood for part of the pruning labor but the brush we have to burn ourselves. There are going to be a lot of bonfires up on our mesa this spring!

More Burning Brush

Ken,


Larry and I burned another 2 piles of brush today.

It was a lovely day.



Ken putting out small grass fires in the dry old pasture.

Larry using his tractor to push the brush up on to the pile.

We got almost all of the brush out of the east side of the orchard. Larry will bring his 4-wheeler and small trailer back and pick up the last bits and we'll burn one more pile on this side. The west side orchard has a lot more brush in it. It's going to take several piles to get it all burned.

Then we have to pick up the firewood. Looks like we've got a couple of cords of wood in the orchard at least. I've got a restaurant that does BBQ that wants some of it. We've got to get it all out before lambing next month.

Burning Brush

Today we started the spring brush burning. All the prunings from the trees need to get burned. Larry had a large pile made and Ken burned it today.

There is still a lot out in the orchard and we'll have several burn piles but at least we got started.

Pruning the Trees

In addition to building excellent fences. Larry also prunes fruit trees.

We have gone through the orchard and marked the trees that are in the best condition and Larry will prune them hard to invigorate them.

It's going to be a big bon-fire when we finally burn all the branches this spring!