Piles burning for you and for me

When we first moved onto the farm, I couldn't plant enough trees. Fruit trees, nut trees, tall trees, short trees, blue trees, white trees, firewood trees, foreign trees,.. no tree seemed outside the bounds of our small farm. So when this last winter we decided to take out most of our fruit orchard to plant table grapes, a whole lot of stuff needed to be decided but most of all, it was saying goodbye to the trees.

We tagged a tree for removal, and then changed our minds, re-tagged, talked and thought about what piece of ground should be in table grapes and which trees should remain. Was it just productivity and good fruit that kept them or was it memories of animals, family, neighbors and strangers enjoying them. We finally decided; we waited for that day in the spring when the ground was still soft enough for the roots to pull, before the leaves came out but not before the ground was too soft from the massive winter rains. We wanted the tractor to not leave marks or dig holes in the earth as it pulled.

After living here for over 40 years, we guessed within a week as to when that day would arrive in the spring. Out come old Johnnie and the chains and as Karen wrapped the chain around the first 16" trunk of an apple tree, I eased backed on the emotions and slowly let out the clutch and over it came. One after another, the 35 year old fruit trees, little sticks we had planted ourselves, came out and were pulled to the middle.

In October after the first rains, we burned the pile. The flames look like fall leaves. Four trees remain.

Now we are pacing out the rows of table grape plants, visiting neighbor vineyards and sneaking out and measuring the distance between plants and taking pictures of their post and wire setups.

And the trunks of the fruit trees are cut and stacked in the woodlot, under tarps. Next fall they move to the woodshed and become heat for the cold and wet days of next winter.