Winter is coming...

                                               woolly bear caterpillar

It's time get the water system ready for winter so it will be ready for spring.  Gander apparently agrees!

                                                            gander and boots

 I open up and drain the  driplines...

                

                                                dripline

and struggle down by the stream!  The rains made things difficult

 

                                                              stream

Here a log has broken into the stream and has crashed against one of the waterlines.  Click on the picture to accompany me as we...

Now,  it's time to get the pump out of the water and pull up the mainlines up onto the hill.

                                                                        pulling up pump tubing

or roll them up using the finest tubing rolling device ever!

 

                         car

 This year I spent more time protecting the trees with collars and paint.  First, let's scythe between the rows where it needs it...

                                                  scything

And  clean up a bit next to each tree trunk.

               

              making tree collars

To make tree collars,  I roll a sheet of tree protecting material around a small log.  You've probably noticed I'm a bit tentative about reaching inside the wire cage. If you click on the picture on the left I will show you why.

And now it is time to repaint the tree trunks...

                                                     tree painting

 And here's a tree ready for  winter !  The original plastic tree collar  helps to  hold the new metal collar on.  

                                               

                                                  protected tree

Everything is done just in time.  Well almost in time anyway!  There are still  leaves to be put around the trees as I did last year (please see Preparing for Winter from last year) but there may not be enough time in this busy fall! There's no need to worry though. We will get to it next year.

                                                                                 snow!