Use and reuse, or invent uses.....

We have a small orchard of fruit trees and bushes and it always amazes me how many piles of branches we end up with each year after pruning. We have three mature apple trees, three trees that are on their 5th year, 2 mature plum trees, 2 plums planted last year, 2 pear, last year, 1 cherry tree, last year, 1 ground cherry bush, 2 elderberry bushes, 1 red currant and 2 concord grape vines. So either we burn HUGE slash piles every Spring or you find other uses. I choose to find other uses. What isn't big enough to mess with for firewood, we bundle for kindling( the straight sucklers are such a blessing to work with) the grape vines can be kept for making baskets. Some of the larger straight branches I'm keeping for a future project, a rustic bench or chair. The cherry bush prunings are also good from making baskets, as they are limber enough to weave without breaking. Straight branches can be used for garden row markers, or larger ones used for Tee Pee towers for climbing beans, peas or even cukes and squash. The possibilities are endless. Happy pruning! Tomorrow is a BIG day for Mike and I, it's our 25th ( silver)wedding anniversary! I can't believe it's been 25 years, well... it's true what they say about time flies when you're having fun. Mike has to working in the morning, but took off the afternoon so we can go out for supper and possibly a movie. Cortney has been sneaking around here for days, so not sure what she's got planned. I can't wait! Well, yet another snow storm is heading our way It's only a one day special, PTL as I'm sick of snow and ready for "Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!" The final product is mud, but I'm just so...... tired of snow. Our wood pile is holding up well in fact we may end up with about 1 cord leftover. All total we had approx. 8-9 cords and this has supplied two households, ours and my folks. I'm not sure I've mentioned this here on the blog, but my folks home is on our property, just 75 ft behind our house. They had a home built here 2-1/2 yrs ago. They wanted to be closer, but couldn't find anything in the area and land was so outrageously priced, so Mike prayed and I prayed, yet neither of us knew about the others prayer and just before Easter Sunday Mike approached me and said "Come outside and look at something with me!" He started telling that if we moved the brooder coop and the grainery there would be more than enough room to have a house built right here for my folks. I'd been thinking along those very same lines. We know it was the Lord speaking to us. We suggested this to my folks on Easter, after dinner. They were a bit shocked, but very excited at the idea. With lots of prep work, moving buildings and our grainery, ground breaking was on June 1st. We ended up moving two fences twice( so cement trucks could have access), we moved our three sided cow shed, their sewer and water line had to go right down the middle of my already planted garden and the small cellar had to crushed in, as it was in the way of the contractor. We also helped my Dad put in a chain link fence and sod for their back yard and for my Mom's dogs. The garden issue was traumatic, but it was my choice, to avoid a whole entirely different torn up mess. My Dad made the offer to rebuild us a new cellar, as well as put in a cement foundation for our grainery. He and Mike worked very hard to keep that promise, with a new 12x12x8 root cellar. My Dad, 70yrs old, and Mike covered the cellar with 4-5 ft of dirt, shoveling it all by hand! My folks moved into their new home in mid August. I'll add some pictures of the cellar during the building process, as well as my folks house. Have a blessed evening and may it continue into this new week.