Joys of Picking Fruit and Digging for Water

Despite finding our newly hand dug fifty foot trench full of water from the recent rains, excellent progress was made on the water line project at the little farm house.  In the photo above, Brandon and Jamie are doing exploratory digging near the old cistern where the water line used to tie into the old house pipes.  While they were making the crater in the backyard even bigger, we had a garden hose siphoning water from the trench so we could drain it enough to work at digging under the house foundation.  Needless to say, it was a very muddy job.  

While Brandon worked in the muddy trench outside of the house, Jamie used the post hole diggers to make a two foot deep hole in the dirt under what will some day be the kitchen floor.   After some failed experiments with pounding pipes through the clay under the house foundation, they finally managed to use the post hole diggers horizontally in the trench to cut through the clay under the foundation and connect the trench to the hole inside the house.  Hooray!  It was a big moment and we all had to stand around admiring the hole in the floor.  We can now run the new water pipes under the house and to the inside.  Who new plumbing could be so exciting!

While all that work was happening, we had sweet potatoes wrapped in foil roasting in the coals of the campfire.  I'm still burning the wood scraps that came from gutting the house, but I've made a huge dent in the pile of debris.  I think Brandon uncovered enough stones digging his trench that I can almost finish the circle of stones around the fire pit now.  

After the sun set and Brandon was able to get out of his mud caked clothes we relaxed around the fire with friends and feasted on campfire roasted vegetables and fried catfish from the local diner.  

I couldn't believe how much fun everyone had knocking pears out of the giant pear tree by throwing pears at the limbs.  Sometimes a single pitched pear could knock down eight or nine at a time.  When someone would pitch a pear and pears would rain down we would cheer, which just made everyone want to try again.  Some of the pears would split when the hit the ground and I figured out that these were the most ripe, so while everyone else was chucking pears I was busy eating them!  

The pear toss game was made more challenging because it was so dark, and we only had a few headlamps to illuminate the limbs.  We did learn not to throw pears toward cars parked nearby (sorry, Jamie!).   

After watching all the fun grown-up people had collecting pears last night, I thought it was interesting to watch my nephew have a great time picking apples from this over grown tree we "discovered" in the field at Brandon's cousin's house today.  

This apple tree was perfect because it has so many low limbs that he could reach, and the branches were so tangled it was like a treasure hunt for each apple.  Unlike me, who was satisfied with a pie's worth, he never got tired of picking.  I'm beginning to think humans have an instinctual enjoyment for picking fruit.  We all love it.  

 

We picked tiny apples, big apples, green apples, red apples, and wormy apples, and he was excited about them all.  

He divided up our bounty when we finished, and for some reason I got the smallest half.  It's only fair I guess, since he did all the work and I just held the bag.  My kind of apple picking!