The Scrub plum tree that had to come down as it had been slowly falling down of it’s own accord for some time.
Scrub plum trees were used by my Grandfather as a root structure for grafting commercial plums onto. This was done as the hardier roots were stronger and could feed the commercial plums faster and last longer. But when the Scrub plum was not pruned back after a few years it takes over and the grafted part of the fruit tree dies off. Scrub plums are like Damson plums but much hardier with very very small sour fruit.
They are the first fruit trees to flower coming out with the snowdrops, so I am loathed to chop them down if it is unnecessary.
When I was getting ready to chop down the poor tree I found my chainsaw fuel container was missing. Searching high and low I couldn’t find it, until I went out to the big bags of rubbish my Ma had been collecting to bring to the dump, where I found it sitting right on top of the pile.
As the tree was chopped we pulled the leafy branches out for the sheep to clean off the leaves.
Whenever there is anything happening a certain person makes his appearance. He came up and flopped down on the ground in a shady spot to watch events unfold.
As we chopped down the plum we could see that it was dieing from within so would not have lasted much longer anyway.
When all the heavy work had been done the inspector made his rounds to make sure we had done everything right.
The sheep move in and clear off all the leaves which make moving the branches much easier.
