Today I took care of two things I have been putting off for far too long! I had a meeting at 9AM with the man in charge of the county health department to discuss planning for our septic system. He went over the specifics of what has to be done and how it has to be done. It seems like there is a little tiny bit of wiggle room that will set me up to be able to do this okay as long as I don’t need a pump to get the effluent from the septic tank to the drain field. I will have to do some measurements to see about that. I might make it, but because of the high water table here, I don’t have a lot of wiggle room on that. The rest of it sounds pretty easy apart from collapsing the old tank. That is a pretty strong piece of concrete, and may require renting a jackhammer.
After all that, I came home and helped Missus out with some things, and then went out and pruned back the whole orchard. It is only about a dozen trees, but this is a job I have been needing to do for some time now. Some of the trees have got pretty good sized and have a lot of limbs and branches on them. They all needed some work. Some only a little bit, and others needed a right butchering! I worked on shaping this year and let the consequences follow. I think next year I can work on trying to maximize production. I also have one dead tree out there that needs to be replaced. It is a prune tree right back with the apples. There are two other prune trees that are alive at the front, and they got a trim and hopefully will produce. But that dead one needs to be replaced with a proper apple tree, I think. No other fruit trees we have tried have survived. Just the prunes and apples.
We have an old apple tree sperate from the orchard by a little way. I gave that one the once over too. It has produced the last couple of years, but very poorly. Hopefully this year will see a change! I butchered the living hell out of that tree, too. It had the most prolific collection of stems and such on it. Now it looks like the others. I know I was only supposed to take off about a third of the tree at max. I am sure I exceeded that. But I think it is worth the risk. It is an old tree and very well established. Besides, I have had a couple of trees that have started out small and been completely knocked over and destroyed, then resprouted off the root ball. I am sure this one could do the same if it had to.
Missus needs help in the cottage tomorrow. I also need to remember to pop open the air tank on the compressor. I have been poor at doing that lately. I need to get the trailer up to the dump and empty it out and ready up for another fill. I could do one or two more before I get the bulk of the old compost pile finished and ready to redistribute the soil where it needs to go. I really want to get some flowers in this year and get Missus going on selling some or getting the place looking better at the very least.
Now that I am pretty sure on where the septic is going, I think I can make up my mind on the gourd tunnel and on the woodshed and a couple of large planters. A couple of lean-tos would not hurt. One for the chicken coop, and one for the tractor. Also, the septic guy approved the idea of building a leech field, then putting a coop next to it and fencing in the field and letting chickens roam around on it. Yeah, I’d like that. Then the ground would not be going to waste.
Our male cat is roaming around the house like he is having some sort of anxiety. I figure it is either the onset of the frogs he can hear through the open doors and windows, or he is missing the female cat who is out in a pen by the chicken coop because she keeps crapping in the house. We are going to try to get her used to being outside in a safe place, then letting her run free a bit then come back in to visit. This keeping her in the house business is just not working out. She keeps spewing out both ends, to be honest. It’s too much. The other three cats that either live here or visit are fine. But this one likes to put her mess where it is nearly impossible to clean. Enough is enough.
Well, there’s my report for today. It’s late enough for an early night now. I might give that a go in a few minutes.