Apples

Last summer while playing in the dirt I planted a couple of fruit trees. They survived the winter and have done reasonably well.

The peach tree in the middle has really grown. This spring it didn't blossom much or set any fruit. I assume that's a result of the big blizzard in April. This variety is known as an early bloomer, so it is a little sensitive to late frost.

The apple trees bloomed and set fruit. I thinned the number down to 6 or 8 on each tree as a pollination trial run. The fruit was doing well on both until recently. The rightmost one got worms, so I removed all the fruit. That way it's not wasting energy on fruit production. The fruit on the leftmost apple tree still is doing OK.

The sad thing is that the leaves on both have been ravaged by Japanese Beetles. Removing them by hand into a bucket of soapy water has been working OK, but I don't think it will be manageable as the trees get bigger.

I'm considering this year an experiment on what I need to do to get a crop a few years down the road, so I'm learning a lot.

As I recall, great-grandpa Joe had an apple orchard in his yard, so maybe I'll get there eventually...

Art - 2

Earlier in the summer we took a family vacation to Montreal and Quebec City. I'd never been to either city before and really enjoyed both. The old town areas in both were very interesting with lots of history and cool architecture.

Of course, SWMBO managed to do some shopping and found these prints made by a local artist in Quebec City. Each of the prints shows a different street scene in Quebec's old town.

They survived the journey back and we had them matted and framed here. A few days ago we hung them in the kitchen.

While the frames are all the same size, it's inevitable that you can't just place the hooks at the same height. Even though I used my trusty laser level and measured everything multiple times, it's still a pain to get the cluster all hung at the same height.

Tuckpointing - 2

Progress has been a bit sporadic.

Dave the mason has also been working at the nearby Commodore. When he gets stuck there he comes here and vice versa.

There were a few bricks that needed to be replaced because they were too damaged. We'd saved some from when we had the porch piers  rebuilt, but there weren't enough. The mason had to begin the sourcing effort and, like always, it's not easy.

The initial selection was approved by the HPC, but when we went to place the order it was discontinued.

After some back and forth, the HPC approved a different brick. It was the right color, but the wrong size; both in height and width. The would mean two cuts on each brick to get it to the correct size. It also means a ridiculous amount of time and labor for each brick.

So the search started again. This time they approved a brick that was only mis-sized in width. That's the easier of the two cuts, so it's not so bad.

We know we're going to need more bricks when we get to the other sides of the house, so we get a better deal if we buy a whole pallet. The extra ones will get stored somewhere unobtrusive (not on the driveway!) until they are needed next summer.