Homestead mailing list

["Lisa K.V. Perry" <lisakvperry AT gmail.com>]

On 1/26/07, Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com> wrote:
> I just couldn't cope with the barrage of apples this year. (snip)  One
> invention that really helped was the "trampoline".
> I took a 20' PVC pipe and bent it in a circle.  It stays put when you
> connect one end to the other, so I really just borrowed it, since it's
> not glued.  Then I stretched an old blanket across the circle, and
> secured pairs of opposite corners to each other with two perpendicular
> bungy cords.  This allows me to knock apples out of the trees without
> them splattering on the ground, after laying down four old sheets as
> tarps.  Actually, it could benefit from a rope handle attached to the
> edge, since at my great height, the steep slope created still allowed
> the apples to roll too fast.


I love this idea! We need to borrow your idea under our large, 100+ y.o.
Stayman Winesap. Hubby and I have schemed and haven't in six years come up
with something as simple and as ingenious as your idea, therefore we haven't
kept apples since we don't pick them religiously 3x a day for six weeks.
Instead, we usually pick them up after they fall and are bruised and cracked
(or alternately, we let the deer eat them). One of our sons will climb into
the tree and get us a couple dozen before they fall, but that's it. We make
use of the smushed apples, but we'd like to eat them through winter. Is the
blanket stretched just taut enough that the trampoline is suspended a couple
inches off the ground (ending the splattering), or ? Thank you for this
great idea.

Isn't it appalling how the CoNN Channel spinmeisters are savaging poor
> Jimmy Carter for daring to speak the truth?

> From what I've read, the book has errors in it. Still, Carter is an 83 y.o.
former President and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He deserves better.

Lisa