A few jobs, nothing too strenuous

To my surprise, there was a dry sunny-ish day at the weekend;  all week I've been getting rained on whenever I left the house.  Not only did I finally put my laundry out (it mostly dried), I did a couple small jobs in the garden.  

First off, the daughter helped me roll my small potted peach tree into the garage--it's on a little plant "skateboard."  I grew this peach (or possibly nectarine) from the seed of a supermarket fruit many years ago.  Unfortunately it gets bad leaf curl every year, first dying back and then putting out spindly new growth;  in fact I thought it had completely died two years ago.  But it held on, just.  Last winter I put it under cover and for the first time it didn't get leaf curl;  the idea is that if the tree stays dry as the leaves emerge, the fungus can't attack it.  Maybe it can grow and actually fruit this year.  Maybe.

While we were in the garage we did a little tidying (the garage is more like a big shed) and crushed our winter's collection of eggshells, in preparation for scattering around transplants later on in spring.  We save all our eggshells and let them dry on trays in the garage.  I also give some back to the chickens for extra calcium.  When he was small, the son used to enjoy crunching them up, and now at age five the daughter likes it too.

Then I got out my hand secateurs and nipped off the new water shoots growing straight up from the Sparta apple tree.  I prune this tree once a year to keep it within my reach, no taller than the 2 m fence it grows next to.  I also cut out any shoots growing perpendicular to the fence, to keep it somewhat espalier.  The Laxton Fortune tree needs less pruning as it doesn't seem to be such a vigorous grower, but it has a couple to be taken off the top too.

Lastly, and before the daughter started crying of cold hands (she started making mud pies while I was pruning), I split some little green logs using our small hatchet (I use it as a wedge and whack it with a mallet).  We'd coppiced a smallish ornamental pear tree for firewood during the Christmas break, with the husband using the reciprocal saw while the son and I wielded loppers.  The sticks and twigs were collected in one pile and the short trunk pieces stacked in another;  I worked a bit on this second pile, keeping myself warm with the exercise and enjoying the sunshine.