Half of my back yard used to be wild blueberries. We’ve had older people tell us about going blueberry picking there when they were younger. I’ve been picking blueberries there since we’ve moved in, but each year it seems to get worse. The patch, which I would assume used to be half an acre, is now nothing more than a few square feet. This year, I was lucky to pick a small handful of berries. We had a very late, heavy frost in June, that may have killed a lot of the blossoms and we’ve had very little rain this year.

The summer we bought the land, we mentioned about cutting them down and burning them. And we’ve mentioned it every summer thereafter, for the last 8 years. This year, as you may see in a previous post, I wanted the bushes near the chicken coop cut down so I could go in and clean out the garbage the previous owners threw there, concerned about my birds getting injured during freeranging. That prompted my husband to basically start whacking everything. He cleared out a lot by the coop. Then he went to the woods near the old Apple tree. He even has his little backhoe down there to try and remove the roots and stumps of the alders. Which brought him to decide it was finally time to do the blueberries. Initially we thought we’d just do half of it, then we’d still have some for next year. So half of it is done, and it looks amazing!

I had him cut around the few trees that were there. Here is a little oak and a little maple that I’m hoping will now grow. We still may cut the other half of the patch out, as we really don’t think we’ll get much out of it anyway. We’ll see how it goes. There probably won’t be any burning, as it’s been very dry this year. Here’s the other half of the patch, so you can see some of what had to be cut.

Its that time of year again. Fall. Don’t get me wrong, I love fall, but those beautiful colors don’t last long. And then it’s winter. And I hate winter.

The top of the coop needs to be closed, and the bird netting on top of the run needs to come off. I made the mistake of leaving it on last year and the snow almost pulled my whole run down. Before I do this, I’ve got to take the roof shingles off the nest box. The younger birds are standing on it and I’m concerned they’re just going to fly over the top. I’ll replace it with rubber, hopefully that will make it lighter to lift as well.

There’s garbage in the yard that needs to be burned. The blueberries, blackberries and quince all need to be cut. And trees need trimming. Unfortunately the bush saw is broken. Now what do I do?

The blueberries haven’t been cut or burned off in years, and we’re not getting much yield from them any more. Cutting them down, we won’t get many next year either, but the following year should be better. So much to do, and with daylight lessening in the evenings, not much time to do it.

I’ll leave the rabbit and chicken waterers out until it gets colder, then the rabbits water bottles will need to be replaced with dishes and the chickens nipple waterer will need to be replaced with a regular one.

On my he bright side, I’m getting new cages for some of the rabbits. I’m finding the large 24x30 cage trays are difficult to handle when full of water (from a leaky bottle) and especially when frozen, so I’ve got 24x24’s coming to make it a little easier.

It's a beautiful day out today. The perfect day to clean. I started with the rabbits, of course. Cleaned out all the cages and brought the bottles in to soak. I can wait to take them back out and start using them instead of bowls! I took the bucks and my two babies out to the pens for some fresh air and exercise. This is the first time the babies were outside.

While I was working on that my husband was cutting alders. He cut out from around the chicken run and inside of it. He also started to cut out around an old apple tree we have. I'd like to get in there and trim the poor thing up. On to the chicken coop. I scraped it all out, changed out the hay, filled up the feeder and switched the bowl out for the waterer. Somewhere along the line they got out. And enjoyed every minute of it.

The hens went in on their own, but the rooster needed a little coaxing. Then he tried to attack me.
I pickes him up and carried him around for a while. I'm hoping we're friends now.

I wanted to BBQ steak this afternoon, but after closer inspection, the barbecue we bought last year is completely broken. I decided to start a fire and clean up some of the broken tree limbs laying all over the ground from the winter. We go through the same thing every year. The Scots Pine that line the driveway fall apart. I've decided that they create way more work than they are worth. I just can't see spending hours a day cleaning up after them every year. We have 3 acres of land here and everything needs tending. Why make it more difficult. There are four on the driveway and I'd like to cut down the two centre ones and plant a Maple tree instead.
Meanwhile my husband was raking up all the rocks off the lawn that belong in the driveway. A product of snow removal, I guess. And he weeded one side of our 40 foot walkway. Which he hates. And wants to rip up.

Went to check on my flower gardens. My Stargazers have not started to come up yet, but it looks like I'll soon have pansies. And, my Hollyhocks are also growing. This is the second year for them, so they should have flowers this year!

After I got most of the limbs cleaned up, I went to the garden. I bought a hand tiller from Home Hardware (because my gardens are raised) and started to mix in all the rabbit manure that had been on top of it for most of the winter. I only got one done before deciding I was too tired to continue.
Now I'm in the house relaxing with my cat and dog, contemplating going back out to work on the flower garden or wash my car. Ah, maybe tomorrow. I'll be back, got to put the laundry away.