I went up, and accomplished a few minor things in the woods this weekend. I swapped out some camera batteries, pruned the apple trees, and cut one large pine down that was in the middle of my apple tree plot. I originally left it there so the plot wasn’t so wide open, but now it is just shading out the trees, and the plot. This was my first real pruning experience, and I had second guessed every cut I made. I felt like I left the trees to bare, even though there was a lot left on them. Basically I just removed any competing central leader, any inward growing branches, and most of the lower branches that were under 3 feet high. Also anything that looked dead. I know some of the trees should have been pruned a few years ago, as some had 2-3 main leaders about the same size and height. But I cut them back to just one. I just hope I don’t stunt them to bad, being last year was the first year I had apples. I have 20 apple trees in the ground now, and have a few on order to plant this spring.
Getting around in the woods was difficult, being we had a good 2 feet of snow still on the ground.
On a side note, Last year my property taxes went up a quite a bit, and I was meaning to ask why, and I ran into the commissioner, I asked him if it was a county wide thing, he said no. So I went about asking what could cause mine to go up, and he asked if I had made any changes in the past few years, I said I built a enclosed deer stand and planted a few apple trees, and he stated that both of them things could have caused my taxes to increase. I guess having some apple trees for deer, can be taxed for land improvements, because an apple orchard makes the land more valuable. Fricken government! They will dream up anything to take your money.
