Spray, water, apples, cattle

Spray

I finished re-spraying herbicide on the areas I had covered earlier before getting sidetracked on the Whitefish River Ranch South proposal over a week ago. I sprayed what I missed the first time and the snowberry bushes which often require several sprayings to completely kill them. All the other weeds I had sprayed were dead. I continued to spray until I covered the whole NE pasture. The smallest pasture done, many more larger ones left.

Water

I started to water the garden and fruit trees and berry bushes again as they all are dry again. I was able to complete watering the trees and bushes before it got dark.

The blueberry bushes don't look so good. They normally need frequent watering without drowning the roots. I am not sure if the browning leaves are because the bushes dried out before I got to watering them last week, or if my method of watering was too much, or both. I water long and deep infrequently rather than a quick watering often. I am trying to get the roots to go down deeper rather than stay near the surface expecting water. With my older (planted a few years ago) fruit trees this seems to have worked as none of their leaves looked stressed by my lack of watering earlier this month when it was hot and dry. The blueberry bushes handled this type of watering last year with no problems, but I also watered more frequently last year when it was hot and dry.

Apples

Two of my apples trees are loaded with apples even after the recent wind knocked quite a few to the ground. I filled several five gallon pails with the fallen apples and tomorrow I will pick out the few good ones to eat and give the rest to the cattle.

The cattle's timing is a little off. They spent the morning and early afternoon down by the river, much of the afternoon in the south pasture, and the evening in the hayfield. After dark I noticed they are along the fence near the house. It was too dark to hand feed them the apple treats.

Cattle

I leave my bedroom window open at night and the window is next to the hayfield. Early this morning a few of the cattle woke me briefly by some sounds they were making outside my window. I don't think it was a wake-up call.