Saturday was nice and sunny, I really wanted to get some work done but I wasn’t sure how much I could do with Xander on the loose. He loves being able to explore so I didn’t want to confine him to the playpen (plus I can only be right around the house if he’s in the playpen– not going to haul it up the hill). On our last walk up into the orchard he had really enjoyed digging in the dirt with his hands so I thought he might enjoy digging with a spoon. I grabbed the big pruning shears (what I call the loppers), a spoon and small bowl for Xander to dig with, and a bottle of water and we headed up to the orchard. Settled Xander down and went to the nearest tree to start pruning. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to work before he got bored with digging but I figured any work was good.
It was amazing, give the boy a spoon and some dirt and he was completely enthralled. I was able to work on the trees for an hour and a half! I had to move Xander 3 times so that he was close to the trees I was working on but he didn’t try to wander off, for the most part he was content to just dig where I sat him.
I’m probably not doing the best job pruning but I’m really just aiming to remove damaged branches or ones that cross over each other and rub. After cutting the branches I hauled them all towards the path so we can move them down to the brush pile with the wheel barrow (not something I could do with Xander). I tried to get Poppy and McCoy to pose near the pile of branches for scale but they weren’t really cooperating.
They were however very happy that we all spent time outside in the sunshine.
