It is blackfly season here. Horrible little monster bugs. Not only do the bites itch like crazy, they have a tendancy to get infected. And the little biters like to target eyes, ears, hairline and inside clothing. Awful. Plus, they’re small enough to be able to get inside the netting of the bee suits. So basically, outdoors is not terribly pleasant right now.

However, yesterday, there was a good brisk wind (gusting up to 56 km/h), which means NO BUGS! Yay, Hooray! Good day to do Orchard-type things. I spent a couple hours with my roll of Soft Tie, getting my larger trees tied for shape-training. I also had to stake a few upright, as the somewhat unrelenting wind here had pushed them into decided leans.

The SoftTie is made of cotton. Similar to Tshirt material, so it will do no damage to the trees, and it is meant to rot off in 18months to 2 years. I had 8 trees or so that are big enough for training. As the others grow, I’ll shape them, too. I want my trees healthy, of course, but I also need them extremely harvestable. Short, open, and well-behaved. I had 25+year old trees at the last place, which had not been shaped or pruned at all, or at least in many many years. Getting them cut back was an unending nightmare. Being able to curate the trees from the very beginning is a blessing in that way.

Once the trees were tended, I decided to tackle the problem of my wringer. I had been clamping it on the divider of my laundry sink, but I am fairly certain it would break the sink eventually, and I definitely dont want that to happen. So, I need somewhere else to clamp it. I picked up some metal pieces at the hardware store last week, and rigged up an L-bracket of sufficient size. The major challenge was, where to attach it?

Eventually, I figured out a sturdy way to attach it to the clothesline pole, low enough to use comfortably, high enough the laundry sink can fit underneath, and at the same angle as the already-existing crossbar, so less likely to be an injury waiting to happen.

It thunderstormed in the afternoon, but I was tired anyway, so I was happy enough for the break. My knee was very upset with me, also. Probably from the crouching as I tied trees. Aging joints are stupid.