I checked out the hazel patch early. Only three of the original ten chestnuts are still alive. Perhaps the worst part of that is that two of the three are “tree”, as opposed to “nut”, type trees — that is, they were bred for growing to impressive trees rather than for producing big crops. I had started with five of each type. That was more than there really was space for, and I wouldn’t have minded a 50% survival rate, but I was hoping for more like three “nut” trees and two “tree” ones.<\/p>\n
The hazels are doing much better than the chestnuts, maybe 14 survivors of the original 22 plants. They haven’t put on much height, and some of the survivors don’t have as many leaves as they started with, but several of them are growing well. If they put down good root systems and come back next year I’ll be happy.<\/p>\n
I got both my small gasoline engines started without trouble. I started with the string trimmer and cleaned up some of the roadside near our driveway (more than just our property, which only extends a few feet either side of the driveway along the road), the sides of the driveway, and the area straight ahead of the driveway. Then I took the chainsaw around the place to cut up two trees that had fallen across trails recently.<\/p>\n
Arlene wanted to go to Mark’s garden center in Bridgton to see if they had any pansies to put in to overwinter. They had advertised a sale of trees for $10 each, also. The trees were gone by the time we got there, mostly because they hadn’t had all that many but also because we stopped at several yard sales along the way. I got three Forstner bits at one place on a side street near Crooked River, and Arlene found two Springbok puzzles at Wild Plum on route 302 in Naples. We went a little south out of our way and came home via the frozen custard stand on route 302.<\/p>\n
I roasted a chicken on the Weber grill and was as pleased as usual with the results. I left the olive oil out of the grilled eggplant recipe, just sprinkled some spices on it, and was NOT as pleased as usual with the results. Memo to self: don’t forget the olive oil! Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I checked out the hazel patch early. Only three of the original ten chestnuts are still alive. Perhaps the worst part of that is that two of the three are “tree”, as opposed to “nut”, type trees — that is, they were bred for growing to impressive trees rather than for producing big crops. I … <\/p>\n