All photos taken by Tom
On Saturday morning I was up at 5AM and got the kitchen cleaned up. I got the house closed up against the heat and went out to water the plants in the cold frame. I was still doing that when Tom arrived at 7:30AM. My #3 intern was still sick so he was filling in.
He went up and brought the Kubota from the barn. By then I had finished the watering. We decided to pull the netting off the back side of the clothesline and fold it in accordion style in 6’ sections. We’d be able to handle it in this size.
I planned to use the cord wood that I use to hold down tarps in the fall to anchor the sides. So we brought over 3 loads of that wood.
We dragged the netting over and were getting ready to start putting it on when Tom noticed the #2 Kahinta plum tree was leaning a lot to the east.
So I went to find the sledge hammer while he went to the barn to find a T post. We cut a section off one of the old hoses and I quickly braided a 6 strand rope of baling twine.
We carefully dug down into the wood chips, looking for drip hoses. We found 3 where we wanted to dig. We moved them a little and we got the post pounded in. The hose section and the baling twine rope were both the right size.
Then we proceeded to carefully pull the netting over the trees.
We left just enough to anchor it on the end and with so judicious pulling here and there, managed to have just enough to anchor on the east end by the peach tree.
It was pretty lightweight but still smushed the trees down a bit. I’m hoping next year I can build a frame to put the netting on.
Before we anchored it, we finished pulling off all the curly leaves on the peach. It had dropped 4 peaches but still had several on the branches.
We got all the cord wood along the side, well up on the chip mulch so it wouldn’t be hit by the weedwacker. It had taken us about 1½ hours to do.
Tom took the Kubota back to the barn and got the truck. But before we loaded it, we went to make sure the dump was open. He did all the cardboard and I got the trash and recycling ready. It took us an hour to get this job done.
I was pretty tired from all the standing and walking so he headed out about 10:30AM. I got a shower and sat down for a while. I got really tired and went to bed and slept for 2 hours.
On Sunday I have to pick all the peas and process them and then get the mowing done before it gets really hot.