An Accident and Sad Loss of a Favourite Tree! Scottish Country House Life (Living in Scotland) 

Best of luck with saving the pear tree and grafting. I had an uncle who was gifted in tree grafting. He used a pocket knife and black electrical tape (DK what you call this tape in the UK) and that was all! No rooting hormones, no coddling. He had some amazing trees in his yard. Trees that grew different types of apples on one tree, etc. My favorite was a tree that grew plums, nectarines and apricots on one tree. I loved to go out and see the growth of the fruit. I lost my Uncle Cecil way too soon and I continue to miss him 40 years later. Thank you for bringing up this lovely memory for me. 💞

It was so heartwarming to watch you trying to graft and save what you could of the little pear tree..in this modern, disposable,world.ii is lovely to see how saving and recovering plants and trees would be the responsible ways of old.I bet it grows again for you Alex! Water and love! Great to see you both and your gorgeous farm.

I very much appreciate you leaving the cat footage in the video 😺🐈‍⬛

Господи, пусть всё получится! 🎉🎉🎉 Пусть вырастут новые плодовые деревья🌲🌳🌴! ❤❤❤

Poor Alex! I really felt for you when that metal sliced down on your thumb. I hope you’re feeling better.❤

When grafting it's important to have the cambium (the live layer under the bark of both parts in as much contact as possible. That's the only part of a wooden plant that's truely alive) I think usually the bark and cambium of the lower part is split off and a wedge of wood of the upper part is inserted under it, shaving the bark, but leaving the cambium. That gives the sap conducting vessels a chance to connect up. Also important: sealing it up well with wax or pitch so it doesn't dry out.

Awwwww,Bless you! You are such a good girl. Hoping your thumb heals well. 💗💗💗💗💗💗

Omgee! You came back so pale after bandaging your finger. I felt so bad for you dear❤

You poor little love, I can see how much that hurt❤️😢

HI GAIL AND ALEX!! I FEEL YOUR PAIN ALEX, YOUR POOR THUMB. HURTS LIKE THE DICKENS AND PROBABLY BLED LIKE A STUCK PIG, BUT ALL IS OKAY AFTER THE SHOCK WEARS OFF. ANYWAYS YOU DID MANAGE TO DO THE JOB GREATLY. ALSO, YOUR GRAFTING I HOPE WILL GROW TO A NEW TREE. THANKS AND STAY SAFE AND HEALTHY ❤️ 🙏

Love the teleporting cat😂

I'm very impressed with your grafting of the tree. I hope very much that it takes. Keep us updated.

I almost fell outta my chair when you cut your finger. I jumped up and said," oh no watch out" I have been binge watching northern mudlarks and I do consider it my favorite RU-vid show. You two are so pleasant to watch and your jewelry is some of the most beautiful I have seen . Keep doing what you all do! inspiration and a serene calm is what I get every time I watch. Your friend in Louisville Kentucky USA. Lori

Looks like a cement mixer. I hope that your grafting is a success. Please keep us updated on how it goes.

40 seconds in…cement mixer.? Ouch ! Bless your heart!😮😢 What a trooper! ❤I would be a blubbering mess! 😭you will have to name it ‘The Yellow Peril ‘😉 The pie looks delicious.😋 so sorry for the loss of your lovely pear tree.😢 Thank you Ladies. ☺️💐💐

I realize that this video is a few months older, but your black cat amazed me!! He can teleport! Wtf?! Lo 😮😊🤣✌🏻❤🙏🏼

Loved the music in this episode.

Good on you Alex for grafting. This is true journey of a homesteader. Blood, sweat and tears. I really love pear compote.

I think you do a great job on instructions, I am hopeless with them 😂

Might make your steps shallow for the future? (We are building new steps, my knees went out between 55 and 60, now his at 70. We didnt realize til one day...)

wait and see in about a year it will probably grow big and tall again. my grandfather used to do stuff like that with his fruit trees

Hope you're hand has recovered well. Just checking in with you two and hope you're both well. I will look forward too your next video soon. Take care God bless x❤

My daughter is always the one to put things together too. Ouch!! Sorry Alex. 😢 Good job👍👏😊

Mother Nature has a way of surprising us or just plain amazing us. Go for it Ms. Johnny Appleseed or in this case Johnny Pear tree.

I so admire you girls, I do wish Alex you would wear gloves to protect your hands😊. Hope the grafts work, I’ve never tried it but nothing ventured nothing gained to save your tree.❤

U both are amazing, I hope the grafting u did will work to save your favorite tree, I love pears! ❤

It's always a pleasure for me to watch your latest videos (Sat). WATCH those lovely Fingers! What am I going to do with you ! ! ! ❤ UK.

You are such a sweet and brave women ❤

i never realized a grafted tree had a weak spot. hope your pear recovers.

You done so, so well Alex when you sliced your thumb, if it were my video, there would have been a fair few bleeps.

You have probably used your new cement mixer already to put in your step through the stone wall. It’s been over four months since this episode was done. I hope it went smoothly.

keeping my fingers crossed the grafting works

It will be so interesting to know how your pear tree experiment works out. My fingers will be crossed. ❤

This brought back so many memories. My first school science project was on how to graft trees. This was 61 years ago. Hope it takes.

Ouch ouch ouch! I felt your pain. I hope your poor thumb is healing well. ❤

Great work on the cement mixer sorry you sliced your thumb. Your skin will heal make sure you put an antibiotic ointment on your thumb. If you haven’t had a tetanus vaccine you should & they last 5 years. I believe you are doing a wonderful job with your pair tree. I really hope it works and it doesn’t take long for it to graft quickly. You worked hard this day Alex and your Apple Pie looked amazing with the light brown crust, I think I will be over for some pie and coffee ☕️ yummy 😋 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🙌🏼💜

Old saying - Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. We'll look forward to seeing how the great grafting experiment went come this spring. Love and hugs from me in New Mexico USA.

You could also take a branch, take off all leaves and put it into a pot with humus and water...very muddy...and let it grow at a very sunny place... my mother always get new plants in this way...and I'm not as successful as her, but often it happens

Good luck with your grafting 🤩🤩🤩💖💖

If I had sliced my thumb like that I would still have been out cold on the ground when my mum came home 😅 well done Alex for Carrying on. Great work with the grafting of your tree fingers crossed they take ❤

Blessings dear ❤ May you heal well and get well fitting gloves that are still thick. Maybe small mechanics gloves?

Omg..i had a mini heartattack!!! Im so so glad you didnt lose any fingers. Please be safe ladies ❤️‍🩹❣️

We all hope that your 'Mucking around' is successful! ❤ UK.

I’m not sure I think if you melted wax and seal it you would have a better chance of taking but I’m no expert my self. Love watching you Two😊❤

From what I remember in biology the bark of the stump and the bark of the piece have to be lined up because the sap runs thru the bark not the inside wood ...and you can cut a round piece of the bark on a leaflet stem and insert iit into a t shaped slit on the main trunk which may be hard on your low stump but might work on another tree on your property....and then cover it with wax to keep rain and bugs out.

It will be interesting to see if any of your grafts take this spring 🌞

Sorry about your scrape and the pear tree… but love the video and the baked goods coming out fresh from the oven♥️

❤Luv ya bunches @Alex and @Gail❤

Good luck with the pear tree grafting, always worth giving it a try. That's how you learn. You have nothing to lose!

Ooh I felt your pain. I hope you are well. The pie looks delicious. I would love to see you ladies cooking. My grandfather could graft different apples to each other on his farm.

Did you know the cement mixer is great for mixing up compost and potting soils mixes? Don't forget to add a dab of grease on the axels and some Lithium Marine grease or graphite base grease (Like Texclad 3) to the gears where they mesh on the mixer. Your local university should have horicultural info on grafting, and here we have the County Extension Agent from the University of Washington we can contact for any help on trees and vegggies. You may be able to find a local class on grafting also. I do like the idea of using the stump, as it was obvious the tree was grafted originally. please keep us posted on hoe it works out. (I have had no luck in grafting, even with help. Black Thumb, I guess lol).

Grafting is fun. You may suprise yourself. GO little pear tree, GO.

beautiful

You will have to do a cookery video on how you made that beautiful fruit pie ❤❤❤

If you take some clipping from the tree and trim the ends and add to water, you will gradually grow roots, and when the roots are big enough you can plant the clones. We had a cherry tree that came down in the minter and by spring little trees started growing out if the stump. It might do the same thing with this pear tree.

14:44 Gorgeous rustic pie! YUM🤤😋 15:04 Don’t worry, it will grow back! (Job 14:7) ❤ In the future, you can use supports for saplings to prevent winds from doing this again. Most fruit trees need other fruit trees to produce fruit prolifically, so when you plant them, plant them in groves if you can. 🌳🌳🌳 Love your ingenuity in grafting the branches. 👏Can’t wait to see if they take. You are a natural in animal husbandry and horticulture, just like your mom!

Always fascinating content, not the expected.

OMG… I felt that Alex! Always wear gloves from now on okay.

That thumb must have been so painful! I did the same many years ago with an apple corer. The previous owners of our last house had chopped down a pear tree to ground level , to our delight a new young tree sprang from the stump and eventually bore lovely pears which I used to make pear conserve with. Hope you are as lucky🤞

Hello de France.... Vous devriez mettre du mastique à cicatriser sur vos greffes, pour éviter que les insectes et les maladies n' entrent pas dans le porte-greffé. Bisous❤

Looks like you ladies have you a concert mixer.

I really miss you posting videos on your farm...when can we expect more?

The base looked a little rotten where the pear broke. Graft failed. Your grafting would work better when the wood is still green. Do when the tree is growing. Spring or early summer. Get a stouter support one from both sides and strap from both poles so it cannot do this again. Honestly the tree looked under the weather. You could just go to the nursery, they have sales at the end of the year.

I saw your piece of skin drop when you sliced your thumb putting the cement mixer together. I hope your grafts take you could pour a bit of melted wax over the joins to seal itto keep fungi out. It worth a try but you do need to cover the graft completely.

So glad you're not giving up on the tree. It's worth a try. Good for you Alex. You're a hard worker. Beautiful land you have. How old is the house?

Pretty cement mixer!

I'm so sorry Alex, about your thumb, OUCH! I hope you washed it well with soap and water. I have never seen an oven with a door that opens from the side! How convenient! The dish looks delicious. The grafting of the two branches >should work. The stump? Not so sure about that, as the roots look weak, but at least you tried. It's better to try than not. I Do hope they take though. Great video once again. Ladies. Thank-you.

just as i yelled watch your fingers...it happened...ouch...

You are both so creative and self-reliant ! Love the baked good coming out of the oven (pie?). Maybe you should start a recipe/baking blog.🥧

How sad about your tree, but you brought tears to my eyes with your dedication of trying to save it. I don’t know whether you did it right or wrong as I’m only a very amateur gardener myself but a tip I do have is use tights to tie any supports to the last one, your now going to be wishing you’d picked up those stocking from your last Mudlark cos it’s brilliant at being strong and you can tie it fairly tight but it’s also flexible enough that it allows the tree to breathe, move & hopefully grow, so better than the plastic straps you had there. I’ve never tried masking tape but I have done sunflower mending (broken stems) with electrical tape, again it’s alittle but flexible. Good luck, I really hope it works for you x

I hope your finger is on the mend Alex, please get some gloves for these sorts of tasks. It was a valiant effort to save your pear tree. The cleft graft method is better for spring when the cambium layer is actively growing. It looks like this video was filmed in summer or early fall. It's not the best time of year for grafting, and usually the bud graphing method is better in summer/fall. I hope your grafts take, but don't be disappointed if they don't grow. Now you can make a pear plan. The stump of your pear should grow a lot of new shoots in spring. When that happens, trim all but the best 3-6 shoots. Let the strong shoots grow all summer, and keep the extra shoots cut back. Let the strong shoots keep growing all winter too. If you mound soil and mulch up on the trunk over the base of the new shoots, the shoots will develop roots, to become more pear trees. The next spring or the spring after, depending on how well rooted the 3-6 shoots are, you can graft new scion wood onto each of the shoots. Once the graft takes, you will have a whole new pear tree, or 6. For scion wood, are there any good local FB garden groups? That might be a way to find a lot of interesting pear varieties that way. Just a suggestion 😃

I was told as a child that pears do not ripen until they are picked and that they should be ripened on a sunny windowsill so you did the right thing...sorry that the tree blew down though...time to plant "pears for your heirs"...an old saying that indicates how long it takes a pear tree to mature enough to grow fruit...

Ouch! I've done that to my thumb not nice..but what a trooper you are. Sorry about the tree ..but hope it come back to thriving.

You never know till you try Alex. I'm no gardener really, but its worth a go. It was such a shame the pear tree snapped like that, as it was bearing fruit so well by the looks of things. Let's hope your grafts on the tree work wonders. Your sump...I'm not sure about, but let's wait and see. The cement mixer looked great. Baptised with blood no less. Live long and prosper eh. X

Sorry about the loss of your tree, I hope your grafting works, we used to use wax around our grafts, in the orchard I worked at.

I know that hurt Alex im so sorry.

There is nothing wrong with trying experimenting and learning. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain if it works.God bless you sweetheart.Just an old man from Mississippi.

Well done Alex for finishing the job l have sliced skin off on my thumb with a Stanley knife take care ladies from Gary on the cloudy Isle of wight

Just a thought that if you put a ramp in instead of steps it would be easier to move machinery like a lawnmower down to the garden.

Stumps will often sprout!

You need to give the cement mixer a name

It was sweet your effort to save the tree Alex, brought tears to my eyes! Thank you for keeping “simple” simple and keeping nature preserved. Here’s hoping that lovely tree will survive you showed it so much love! 💕 thank you ladies for another lovely video! P.S. your pie looked amazing! 😊🌼

Oh Alex poor you 😢 your thumb must have hurt like crazy, i would have been swearing my head off 😂😂 well done on trying to graft your fallen pear tree, fingers crossed it takes, take care sweet Mum and daughter you both work so hard ❤❤

I'm sure it's been commented on several times under this, but seal the graft with grafting wax. You will be so buzzed up if it takes and starts to grow.

Been missing you two on The Lost Tower Diaries. When will you be back?😢

So heartwarming to watch you both caring for your farm and home. I had many questions popping on my mind while watching this and other videos, it would be so nice to have a Q and A again.

Poor Alex. I really winced when you did that as I did something similar to my thumb years ago. Still have the scar 40 years later. Hope it mends quickly and feels much better soon. Hope the little pear tree graft works. 😊

It never hurts to try and you can take interest in if any of them will take. You have nothing to lose but if it works, you gain…👍👍👍👍👍💗💗💗

I know that had to hurt so sorry. It hurt me so see it.

Ouch!

You are a beautiful mucker Alex.

sorry for being nosy 2 scottish women and a concrete mixer, never let difficult moments get in the way of achieving your goal

I think we've all done something like your 'thumb slice', and we all know how unpleasant it is. I was always told that when you've finished mixing, run the mixer with water and a half brick in it - dislodges most of what's left. Look forward to seeing what you build with it.

Aw... That wasn't a great day. 😢 I admire your spirit to not let that nasty injury get in the way of your creativity. Good for you! Lovely footage! ❤❤❤

I hope your attempts at grafting are fruitful 😉 Alex. Please give us an update on their progress.

Ooo Alex that was a sore one😢, a actually shouted Ouch ouch. Hope it's OK 👍

When in high school, I really wanted to become a horticulturist. However, life intervened. But, to this day, I love trying to propagate my house plants and get so excited to see tiny roots sprouting. Watching Alex with her grafting attempts warmed my heart.

That’s what humans have been doing since the caveman days… “I don’t know if this will work, but I’ll give it the ol’ college try!” Good luck with the wee tree, and fast healing for your finger. Love you ladies!

🙋‍♀️❤️. I'm sure your pear trees will respond to your loving care it at all possible. You never know until you try. ⚘️🍐🍏🍑

OUCH!!!! 😣😣😣 You are going to need more than a plaster on that cut/slice. Years ago, I used to work as chef in my sons restaurant and twice, First time I sliced of a bit of the tip/meaty part on my my ring finger on my left hand and next one, my middle finger on the same hand. Thankfully, not at the same time... 😳😂 Of course, I was working alone in the kitchen and it was lunch hour so.... No one to cover for me and lots of hungry people in the dining area... *BIG SIGH* Ripped off a large piece of napkin paper, wound it around my ring finger, cut the finger off of a rubber glove and pulled it up over wadded napkin and band aid/plaster, I'd put there to keep pressure on it. A rubber band around the top, nearest my hand to prevent any "leakage". Threw away the lettuce I had been slicing, Including the piece of skin from my finger tip... 🤢 Changed the cutting board and washed everything down... Got a new head of lettuce and continued working... When one of the cooks finally came in during the afternoon, I handed them my apron and told them HERE! I'm going to the doctor... 6 stitches later and I was good to go.... 😂 Next finger a few months later, I was slicing cucumbers... Veg seems to have a death wish for me!! 🤬 This time, I just wrapped the fingertip in napkin, did the same with the finger of a rubber glove and kept working. Didn't go see a doctor that time... Fingertips and earlobes are the worst/most profuse bleeders on your body, unless you hit an artery... Please keep it clean and avoid putting pressure on it. Yes, I know I'm preaching and your mum most likely has already got on your case but... It never hurt to have more than one woman/mother or in this case, most likely a grandmother figure looking out for and caring about you. ☺