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Posted on May 28, 2015 @ 07:26:00 PM by Paul Meagher
For the last 2 days I've been busy planting trees. Two days ago I installed my first nut grove consisting of
21 hazel nut trees. Installed it into a v-shape piece of land. Today we planted 35 apples trees and 6
pear trees. These were two year old trees that came from Oregon and were quite a bit bigger 2 year olds than
I was used to getting.
Farming is a tough business to make a profit at especially when you are planting tree and vine crops that take a longer
time to mature and become productive. I convince myself that the yield is not just money but physical
health and working outside. Tomorrow is a day of whipper snippering around some 2 yr old
grape vines so I can bring a post hole digger in on Saturday to install the trellis system. More physical work tomorrow.
Small mosquitoes are eating us alive. I wasn't properly dressed for the onlslaught today (only emerged in the last few days) but tomrrow I'll have some deet and long sleeve shirts and pants. My legs look like I was hit with a shot gun (specks of blood from all the bites). I've been bitten lots before so I don't notice them much.
I still check my email throughout the day to monitor the network but I'm not available by phone much if you are trying to reach me that way. This situation won't change for the next few days.
We are in the period of the "spring flush" where the landscape explodes with growth. It is hard to keep up but with the help of my brother I think we'll get through it.
The only general lesson that might be relevant is that when you are starting up a business it is nice when you and your workers only put in 8hr days. If you work longer it doesn't give you much time to do setup work for the next day which can lead to lots of inefficiencies. Whenever your are in high work mode you need at least 2 hrs to deal with stuff that breaks (order new parts), get gas, figure out a plan, and deal with a bunch of other stuff that doesn't get done during the workday. In a startup that means you work 10 or more hour days. I'd like to
keep it as low as possible so I can have a life outside of farming or to enjoy aspects of the farm that you can't when you are always working.
I'll be starting to direct seed some gardens in the next few days. With the situation in California, it will become more important to garden this year. El Nino might not help either. I'll be doing some container gardening for herbs. I had big containers for my apple trees that will make nice containers to grow herbs in. Haven't grown many herbs in the past - only enough to know they can be invasive if not contained so container gardening makes more sense for me when growing herbs.
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