chop em off and munch em up...

I had a little big nut tree now it's not so big.

 I've been busy "making hay while the sun shines" this week.  I've done all the heavy pruning of all our fruit trees which should really be done over winter but "needs must" and they've had a haircut now.  It was getting beyond a joke cutting the grass underneath them they branches scraping my delicate young skin every time I went near the trees.  So it was a case of "off with their heads" and the old chain saw was brought into action.

Apple, pear, plum and another hazel nut trimmed.

It's ideal little electric chain saw which I bought in Greece maybe five or six years ago now to get fire wood sorted for winter.  I brought it back to the UK with us when we moved onto the yacht.  It has done very little little since it migrated countries but has now once again paid for itself.

The big green thing in the picture is one of our shredders, we have three, this will handle branches up to about as thick as a ladies wrist so is ideal for this job.

The mulch mountain is useful for later though.

All in all I have now got six or seven cubic meters of chippings which once allowed to die of completely can be used as a mulch to suppress weeds on the rest of the garden.  You could put them on the ground straight away but as they decay they will take nitrogen from the soil and thus rob existing planting of necessary food.

Finley (green) awaits the baton getting to him.

Today was Finley's sports day at school, the strange thing is he actually wanted me to go with his dad to see him.  I would have thought that Sandra would have been the chosen replacement for mum but no, I feel honoured.  Anyway the adults who looked after about two hundred kids all afternoon have my admiration especially when a good proportion of them are deaf, not an easy job.  Finley had a great day but was shattered when he returned home this afternoon and actually fell asleep in the car, normally he doesn't stop talking long enough to sleep!