Today was the day two of the three old apple trees were cut down.

This is the view before the cutting.

After the cutting/Before the hauling.

This is the view after the cutting.
The apple trunks were cut into logs and ends sealed with wax to prepare for Shiitake mushroom spawn in a few weeks. The branches (all four loads) were hauled to the burn pile. It was with both sadness and relief that the trees were cut. They were very bland tasting apples and the trees took longer to prune than the rest of the trees combined and picking up the deadfalls was a pain. However, they were part of this place for a long time. We kept one of them as it has very early (July) apples great for sauce and we’ll give it one more year and graft some branches to new rootstock to continue it on this place.

If you look closely, you can see the first raised bed in place – I’m going to build a bunch of raised beds where the trees used to be for more gardening space. Right now, there is a chicken tractor perched on top – we’ll use that to create the soil.

We also put up a small cold frame to get a jump on lettuce and early spring crops.