Signs of Spring and Tools of the Trade

Saturday's progress!  Here is our high-tech way to cram more yard waste into the barrel.  We take one of our empty plastic buckets and ram it against the pile of brush in the barrel.  It is rather satisfying to crunch those blackberry vines.

Norm had drug out dozens of blackberry vines from the plum tree side at the end of our work session last weekend.  Today I cut up all of the vines in front of the soon-to-be vegetable bed.  That filled the yard waste once again, and I left the back section for another day.  I cleared leaves and sticks and even a huge mushroom out of the center yard.  Waiting for a halfway dry day to run the lawn mower over the remaining leaves.  I wanted to start clearing ivy out of the vegetable bed, thinking it would make me feel like I was making progress if I could get down to bare earth.  I did get a bunch pulled, but it's a long ways still to bare earth.  Ivy is a lot easier to pull than blackberries!

Tools of the trade:

Leather gloves, big pruners and small pruners.  And my waterproof Timberland boots.  I'm actually not a pink person, but got these for $15 one time at the Fremont Sunday market.  They are quite awesome for working in the soggy Northwest.

Norm had been at work, but came out to do the first bit of pruning on the apple trees.  He got a recriprocating saw with special pruning blades at Lowe's.  Wow - it worked great!  So much easier than any of the hand tools I've used before.  He cut off a bunch of branches before it got too dark.  We've let the trees go for a couple of years.  They're a mess anyway, from other years when they've been let go.  Can this tree be saved?  Stay tuned!

 There are signs of spring everywhere.  I cut vases of flowering cherry branches and forsythia.  Hopefully they will bloom inside in the next few days. 

Lots of birds out yesterday.  Robins and sparrows, and I think I heard our resident mourning dove.  It turned much colder over night, and I hope birds and buds all survive.  So beautiful today - clear and sunny.

Getting ready for the Superbowl game this afternoon.  Go Hawks!!