There is a reason why working folks are called "stiffs"

We finished up the majority of the moving today.

I can feel it in my chest and shoulders. The stairwells had bends in them and the landings required that the larger items be held out, away from my body as we bent them around the corners.

I can only imagine how it would have been a struggle for most women who have about 60% of the upper-body strength of most men. There are times when strength matters.

Grafts

More grafts are pushing buds. I now have grafts of Kanza, Oswego and Posey pecans pushing buds. I also have one Lebenon Junction and two Fayette Seedling shellbark hickory grafts pushing.

I am adding "perch poles" to the trees. It is a sad fact of life that birds seem to be attracted to rapidly pushing shoots on grafts and will attempt to land on them, thereby snapping them off. The solution is to plant a pole next to the graft you want to protect. The perch pole should be taller than the graft and offer multiple limbs for the bird to choose from.

I am using untrimmed bamboo I culled from my patch because I have a lot of it and it is the right length and has lots of little side-limbs.

Shellbark Hickory vs Pecans

If you live south of Indianapolis then you can probably grow some dandy northern pecans. If you live north of Indianapolis, you can play around with planting pecans but the Shellbark is the one that will fill the cookie-jar. The taste is nowhere near identical but if you like pecans you will like Shellbark Hickory.

I have some "Far-northern" pecan trees along my driveway and the nuts are peewees that do not crack-out well. They fill well enough to produce seedlings but they are shy bearers and a lot of effort to crack-out any amount of nut-meats.

The reason for grafting Kanza, Oswego and Posey is to up-grade the gene-pool. I might never grow a "good" pecan but those pecan cultivars should pollinate my "peewees" and the progeny might amount to something.