Spring Break Projects

In addition to running a marathon this week, Tyler had some other plans as well:  

Project Apple Orchard! 

He ordered lots of scions a while ago, but has not yet grafted them since he has been slightly busy and these store well. These grafts will *hopefully* make our current wild trees full of yummy, domestic fruit. He also ordered 13 baby apple trees which arrived this week, and since they need to be planted right away he got to work immediately (well, the weather was hurricane-like yesterday so he didn't get much done then!).  The first order of business was to call the Dig Safe people to make sure he wasn't going to dig through our electricity. Unfortunately, he found out that they just don't tell you over the phone where your lines are buried, instead you have to give them a couple days to come out with some spray paint to mark the lines. Bleh. Project stalled. So instead Ty decided to cut down an ash tree that was crowding a sugar maple and would also crowd our new apple trees. Here is a before pic:

The ash is to the right of a beautiful sugar maple

Tyler has spent the better part of three days cutting down, splitting, and stacking this darn tree. But now we have a much clearer view from our deck and we hope the maple will really take off now!

Remains of ash along with some neat objects pulled out of the trash antique  pile behind it!

Earlier this week, Ty brought the remainder of the old woodpile down into the basement. This is our new ash-pile!

Future bonfire (or curtain rods for neat project I found here)

Once he got that done he was supposed to stop and do some grading, but instead it was too beautiful a day not to plant a few apple trees! He is only planting along the outside of the driveway since we know that no power lines are buried there. Eventually both sides of our driveway will be lined with apples like this:

From: http://nature-dayhikes.blogspot.com/2010/05/topsmead-state-forest.html

Here is what he got in the dirt today:

There was an already existing tree - he planted 3 uphill from it and 2 downhill.

Hard at work!

That is a Gala in the front - my favorite apple!

My big spring break project was to clean out the office/library/junk room so that we can paint the nursery. I also wanted to put together the crib and cradle/swing to make sure there were no missing pieces before the return policy expired. Yesterday we built baby stuff and I started cleaning. By this afternoon the nursery was empty and ready for paint (it only took maybe 30 or so trips up and down the stairs - a workout)!

 I also spent WAY TOO MUCH time this week looking at different decorating blogs (check out all the new links in my "Blogs I Read" sidebar) to gather ideas for the nursery, but also for the house in general. I am starting to feel like there are some projects that MUST be completed before the baby arrives or else they may never get done. Ever. With some help from a free software download called paint.net (like free photoshop), I also taught myself how to make very handy "inspiration boards." A friend also recommended a site called Pinterest.com where you can "pin" favorite images to a virtual corkboard-of-sorts. It's really neat but I am still waiting to get my "invitation" to join. So in the meantime this is what I have doing with my spring break:

Current green and pink paint will be traded for blue like this:

Robin's egg blue

Tyler's summer building projects: nursery storage, entryway bench, and table

Baby A's Room Ideas (notice the blue paint). Bird sheets and b&w  fabric have been purchased!

So there you have it: all the ways we procrastinated grading over spring break! Now it's 7:08PM on Sunday night and time to get cranking on those papers!