On Tuesday, Phil spent part of the morning butchering the deer. We had hung it for a day—a warm day, unfortunately, so we had to give some of the meat to the pigs, as it had maggots. Most of it was good, still, and he skinned the buck and took off large roasts and other meat. I helped by holding the hanging meat to keep it more-or-less still.
I enjoy working towards self-sufficiency. (My garden still looks great!) I enjoy composting humanure and deer entrails, and feeding the pigs the deer meat we can’t use. I am pleased that we’ll burn the deer skin in hopes of gaining protection from the deer. It makes me happy that our oats feed the deer, and the deer feeds us.
And I am pleased that, when we lived in Boulder, we took the meat Phil shot to the butcher, but now, in the country, we do it ourselves. As a good homeschooler, I like learning new things and gaining new skills!
In the afternoon, Phil went to a local sawmill and shoveled in a load of sawdust, in preparation for our trees’ arrival. I don’t know why we hadn’t done that before, but now that we know where to find free sawdust, I think we’ll head there regularly (if only to use with our humanure, rather than spoiled hay, which isn’t as absorptive as I’d prefer.
This morning, Phil oversaw the boys as they shoveled all the manured wood shavings out of the barn. They put most of them into the outdoor shelter for the chicks, and they did a good job with minimal complaining. Then, as a reward, Phil tilted two pallets against some hay bales, then covered the pallets with hay. The boys could wiggle in under the pallets, and this became their very secret fort. It looks just like a lot of hay.
Around lunchtime, the UPS truck backed down our driveway, and left us with four small boxes (Christmas presents) and eight large boxes: the 366 fruit trees for our future orchard. Phil and I went to work.
We carried the boxes, which weighed between 46 and 64 pounds, one by one, to the trench beside our barn. (To review: we opened the trench initially to lay electrical, and left it open for water. With the water line laid, Phil hadn’t quite gotten around to filling it in, which ended up working well for our purposes.)
After we opened the burly boxes and torn open the hefty plastic bags, I put the bareroot bundles of trees into the trench.
Phil backed the truck up and shoveled sawdust on them until their roots were well surrounded.
When all eight boxes were empty, Isaiah watered the sawdust and I checked the labels and looked at the bases to make sure no roots were exposed. I have heard that roots wick moisture, so if even one is exposed, it can kill the tree. That’s sobering (although perhaps not true).
The different colors of bark, the different sizes, the different names all thrill me. I remember little details about the trees, like “Esopus Spitzenburg” apples were one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite, though he couldn’t grow a truly great one at Monticello. I figured trying four of them would be fun. Or “Beni Shogun” apples are actually a strain of Fuji, which I guess makes sense: Mt. Fuji is in the land of the Shogun. The tree apricots came bundled together, three little unique trees in a sea of fruit. The cherry bark is all the color you’d expect from cherry wood. The peach trees were noticeably larger than any of the others.
Now the fruit trees stand near my barn, a fragile palisade that, we hope, will offer food and funds to us for many years to come. We welcome them with joy.
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