Pruning Old Apple Trees

We had beautiful weather Saturday morning which allowed for intense, outdoor farm work. We took three more loads of soil from mole hills in the pasture--the greenhouse raised bed is done on one side--enough to let Mark build a growing shelf for small seedlings. The real fun was using the 14' orchard ladder to prune the apple trees. Easier said than done---trying to position the ladder where the pruning needs to be done is tricky and of course, we didn't have exactly the right pruning tool. Mark may be a little taller today from all of the stretching and reaching he did to take out some of the 'water spout' branches. Max and I were the ground crew--pruning back blackberries and picking up branches. All five tree trunks are hollowed out--how do they keep growing? One tree had a blackberry vine growing up inside the trunk about 20 feet and out through a hole in the trunk. It's gone now!