A budding orchard...

One benefit of the land we're living on is that, at one time, there were several homesteads on the property.  As a result of this, there are many old apple trees around.  One of our projects is to try to revitalize some of these old apple trees and to encourage the young ones around them to flourish.  This is what the 'orchard' looks like now -- can't you see our vision?!?! ;)

The wild orchard -- we have our work cut out for us.

First we need to clear away the old brush and let some light in so the trees can start producing again (we hope).  Our chainsaws are out of commission right now, so we're limited to small stuff. We spent about 2 hrs clearing things this morning, and we're pretty happy with our progress.

Anna gets to work while Blaze (we're dog-sitting) supervises.

Some dogs were more helpful than others.

After the clearing is done, we need to decide what trees we're going to keep and then prune them. It took a long time for these trees to get so big and out of control, so it is going to take more than a year for them to get healthy and producing apples again.  I've been doing a lot of research on permaculture in preparation for a permaculture class I'm taking, and I have great plans for this orchard.  We're going to plant low growing things that will nurture the soil rather than fertilizing, and eventually, it will be very lush and green under the trees with small footpaths to access the apples.  It is going to be awesome. We think it is pretty awesome now, but in a few years, maybe everyone else will agree too.

Much more cleared after a couple hours of work. 

And now...the dog aftermath of a hard days work in the woods...