Apple Thinning and The Deal with Ants

Goodness we have been busy. Here is a quick update.

We have started apple thinning. We are thinning a number of different varieties of apples, which if I am correct include, gala, fuji, red delicious, winter banana, macs, spartans, garlic, golden delicious, musu, honeycrips, pink lady, discovery, cox pipen, and ambrosia apples.

To thin apples, you generally want the apples to be 6 - 8 inches apart dependent on the variety. Also, if a tree is very loaded with apples, it is better to thin it a little more so that the fruit grow to a reasonable size. When thinning, you can see apples that already have a yellow stem are being thinned naturally and will fall off at a simple touch. The other need to be picked off without removing the stem from the tree if the apple is in a bunch - you do this to prevent the stem from the apple you want to keep drying out and falling off as well.

While thinning, we discovered that there are a lot of ants that live in the trees. It turns out that the ants are there to eat aphids on the leaves. However, not only do the ants eat the aphids, they also farm the aphids! This means that the ants carry the little insects up to the fruit of a tree so that they can get juicy and fat, and then they come and get them once they are tasty and delicious to feed to the colony at the base of a tree.

One of the workers said that they would like to be an aphid if they were to come back as another creature - born, carried to the feast of your life, eat until you are essentially silly with a food coman, then carried to your death. Not for me.

On the farm there are also a few unusual experiences that have been had recently. First, I was mowing one of our fields that is on rotation this year - it is only covered in a cover crop for the season and we want to prevent the crop from going to seed and spreading to the other fields - and I somehow got metal fencing and chicken wire wrapped all around the mower. Unable to mow with such a tangled mess, I had to get some wire clippers, get myself under the mower and cut out the tightly wound fencing. Not a bad job, but while I was under there, I got a bit anal about cleaning the mower. There was a ton of mud and dirt caked on, so after I finished with the wire cutters, I got a hammer and chisel and started knocking away all the crud that had been stuck there. Very satisfying.

There also seems to be a problem of disturbing dolls and doll parts being found about the property - the Klippenstein's have two young girls and I think some of their toys have been left behind and taken by the elements. Well, someone thought it would be hilarious to cover the stick shift of our on farm vehicle with a doll head. Please witness.

Annamarie finally got creeped out enough that she through it out. I must admit I do miss the creepy doll head a bit, it brought a unique character to the farm. :)