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PHOTO: Loppers? Check! Electric chainsaw? Check! Charlie has started work pruning high bush blueberry bushes. Many of us have more time to do the things we have been putting of for sometime. Pruning the bushes will produce bigger berries come July.

by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer

Charlie and I are well and I hope you and yours are too.
I don’t have any exciting far or near adventures to report because we have chosen to stay close to home and my parents.
Delta gave me a credit for my cancelled ski trip to Utah and so I will dream about skiing there next February.
Our skis are leaning in the corner of the breezeway. Time to wipe’em down and put a little storage wax on their bases before we put them away. I have done a few loads of laundry washing ski jackets and snow pants—I didn’t realize they were so grubby.

Our ski boots are clean and dry. I packed them in our boot-bags along with the essentials (socks, goggles, mittens) so we can grab and go at a moment’s notice next winter.
We live on an old high bush blueberry field with a thousand bushes that need to be pruned.
Pruning blueberry bushes takes a lot of time. The last three years we have made an effort to bring back parts of the field and there was never enough time to prune.
Instead of going to Tuckerman Ravine we’re going to be pruning blueberry bushes this weekend. It may not be exciting right now but hopefully the fruits of our labor will be big and blue come July.
Stay local, get outside.
Have fun.

Amy Patenaude is an avid skier/outdoor enthusiast from Henniker, N.H. Readers are welcome to send comments or suggestions to her at: amy@weirs.com.