Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Accidental Orchardist

I came home from work today to a big surprise.

I parked the truck and out of the corner of my eye caught sight of a red ladder in the apple orchard.

So I walked over to investigate.  What do you suppose I found?


Totally not what I was expecting.  What the heck is going on here?

You see, earlier this morning the power went out and my employed at home woodworking husband couldn't turn on his power tools.  So he decided to wander outside.  There he found the wind had knocked down some apples out of the trees.  So he decided to pick them up as he remembered I had told him it would be best to clean up fallen apples so disease wouldn't spread.  (Smart man!)  But he had a bit of trouble because under the apple trees it used to look like this.
The climbing nightshade I wrote about in my last wildflower post has completely taken over the orchard.    So hubby decided to do a little cleaning up.  By the time I arrived home the orchard looked like this.
WOW.  Between him and my mother I ought to just sit back and sip a martini and wait for all the work to be done around here.  Jody himself couldn't believe what he'd done.  I was practically jumping up and down with glee and he just said, well, all I really wanted to do was clean up a few apples but then I was just enjoying myself.

The man is a born gardener and he doesn't even know it yet....

4 comments:

Laura said...

That's exactly what happens to me. I'm just going to do that one little thing, and then next thing you know I'm digging up a bed and in full blown project mode. He better watch out, that adrenaline rush of a project complete is addictive!

Marguerite said...

Laura, I wish I could get that project complete rush!! Feels like my time is always split between 6 different projects and nothing ever gets finished! In fact I was eyeing up that orchard but figured it would get left until at least next year because I have too many other things on the go.

Jennifer said...

My husband always makes the joke to other people that I am the gardener and he is the cheap labor.

What a nice surprise to come home from work and find that he has done so much work in the orchard.

Marguerite said...

Jennifer, I think the biggest surprise was that Jody took to doing this all on his own without any prompting from me! Although I had thought of it I had never mentioned cleaning out around the orchard. It's like he read my mind.