Pruning Day

I checked the weather yesterday and it looked like it wasn't going to get really cold for the next several days. Fruit trees should be pruned in late winter, a few weeks from now but I'm not a patient person. And, I had a 3 day weekend and was looking for something to do. If it gets really cold soon after pruning, you can loose some flower buds but, like I said, the weather said it wasn't going to get real cold. So I did some pruning yesteday afternoon.

Of course it's 24º now, 16 wind chill, and it's supposed to get down to 20º overnight. Did I mention it wasn't supposed to get cold? This is my whole problem with the global warming thing. The same people that can't tell me if it's going to be cold tomorrow somehow know that the polar ice caps will be melted in 10 years. Of course it's not "global warming" anymore. Now it's "climate change". It's good to hedge your bets.

But I digress.

I pruned the peaches and apple trees.

The apples were the worst. I bought a couple of "5-in-1" apple trees a few years ago. Five different varieties are grafted onto one trunk and they're supposed to grow 5 varieties of apples. Not knowing which branch was which, I haven't ever pruned these the way they should be pruned. I was afraid of cutting off a whole variety. But I've only gotten golden delicious apples so this year I pruned. It will take a couple of years to get them right, if I ever do.

apple tree before and after

When trimming peach trees, the goals are to open up the middle to let sunlight in and allow air circulation, reduce the amount of fruit so the tree isn't overwhelmed, and keep everything at picking height. A wide, open, weird looking tree is what you're going for.

peach tree

The real trick is to just cut off almost everything that's growing upward. All of the branches pointing toward the sky were new growth last year. I'll cut the same off again next year.

another peach

I know the "after" picture looks worse than the "before" but that's how the experts do it and they must be right or they couldn't be experts...just like those weather guys.

Help Wanted

Completely unrelated to gardening. But is is January and 32º outside.

I've got a position available for a maintenance mechanic at work. I'm reviewing the roughly 80 applications we've received so far for this position and thought I'd share a few job hunting tips while they're fresh in my mind.

This batch of tips is about filling out the application:

Tip #1: Never say "None"
You know that line on the application that asks you to list your skills? Well you must know how to do something. I would like to have you write that you can troubleshoot something, preferably stuff with important sounding names but I may settle for less. I know you have some skill. Obviously you can write if you're filling this out so write "read and write English" or anything. Don't write in that you have no skills. Even if it's true, leave this line blank.

Tip #2: You may have to embellish a little.
If you've had 6 jobs in the past 3 years, and were fired from each one, find a creative way to say that. Don't lie, I'll call your references and find out but at least a creative answer may get your foot in the door. That little box that says "Reason for Leaving" can be the end of your chances if you write the word "Terminated" six consecutive times on the same page. Tip #2a. Writing "Terminated because I don't have a ride to work" is also a poor idea.

Tip #3: Color inside the lines
I have 80 applications to look at. Each application is three pages. That's more reading than I did in my entire education from Kindergarten through College. If you write more, I won't read it. We give you enough space to make your point, be conservative. Don't waste paper, it doesn't grow on trees. If you make your three page application 6 pages long by adding more stuff than fits, I will assume you have a problem following directions or that you might not do well working in an environment with rules. But mostly I'm going to think that you're an awful bore and I don't want to work with you.

Tip #4 Don't confuse me
Writing "I grew up learning everything I know" makes me think that your learning may have stopped early. Both because you say so and because I can tell so.

Tip #5 Anticipate my questions.
If you live in a different state, not even one that's within a full tank of gas from the job, why are you applying?

The Worst Purchase Ever

Not much gardening happening now. It's in the 30's on most days and 20's at night. We just came out of a few days in the teens so gardening is on hold. But I have something related to write about anyway. It may be a stretch but I'm going to write about a food chopper.

I bought this food chopper this evening at Walmart to chop vegetables so it is 's at least some what garden related; since my garden is where I fail to grow vegetables that I could, at least in theory, chop.

I've seen these on TV. You put an onion on the cutting board, slip this "handiest kitchen gadget you'll ever own" over the onion, hit the handle a few times and a matrix of blades turns the onion into minced onion in seconds. It's all done inside the chopper so there's no mess and I don't have to cry.




Well I got my $8 prize home and decided to give it a try. Had half an onion left over from dinner in the fridge, put it on the chopping board, and opened the box my new chopper came in. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out where all these parts go. Me. I actually once attended college for engineering and I fix mechanical things for a living and I was practically beaten by a late night TV kitchen gadget.

After a couple of false starts, I figured out where all the parts went and started chopping. After the first chop, having spent 20 years fixing all sorts of things mechanical, I realized something wasn't right. My onion wasn't chopped, it was stuck in the blades going up and down with each press of the "soft grip" handle. A few more chops should free it I thought, it didn't. So I had to lift it up, spilling a few bits of onion that were no longer contained in the "easy to clean" container on the cutting board. A minute with a knife to free the stuck veggie from the blades and I was back in business, except the spilled pieces prevented me from getting it down where it belonged on the cutting board, but with the same skill it takes to get Rosie O'Donnell fitted at the Men's Warehouse, I tucked the loose pieces inside and chopped again.




Stuck again. And yet a third attempt: stuck again. What a piece of crap. Normally, when I buy something for $8 at Walmart, I know it might not be the Rolls Royce of kitchen gadgets. But this one makes me mad because it's so bad that it has to be on purpose. This thing is so awfully designed, in so many ways, that there is no way anybody at Farberware (oh yeah, I'm naming names) believed it was anything other than complete junk.

My list of complaints:

• The convoluted blade design has a narrow little uncleanable area at each bend. I can't even get the tiny nipple brush from my son's bottles in there.
  
• The blade falls off the shaft, both for cleaning and to frustrate the user.
• There's a worthless, plastic thing with a cut out the exact shape as the blade that the blade has to be inserted through. Not a problem if the blade was a circle or square, or some shape other than a zigzag.
• There are more parts than it needs, a lot more parts than it needs and when you "open for cleaning" it comes apart like a swiss watch.
• Oh, and there's the little detail with it not chopping anything.

Farberware (Farberware, Farberware, Farberware) must have gotten a cheap batch of laid off Chernobyl engineers to design this one.

Email me if you'd like to buy a slightly used food chopper...only $10.

UPDATE: Just be fair, we tried chopping some carrot. Still a piece of crap!