9/30/08

trees trees and more trees

Last Monday (9/22) we found a great deal on trees at Home Depot. They had just marked down 1/2 price fruit trees, pecan trees, 24" box trees. They also had crape myrtles for $10, something we've had a hard time finding for under $50 the last couple of years. And these are the ones that grow 20ft tall, not the bush ones. In all we were able to buy 54 trees:
7 oleander
4 gala apple
3 pear
4 of 2 different kinds of peaches (Harvester and ?)
19 of 2 different color crape myrtles
2 kiowa pecan
3 brown turkey fig
10 Arapaho blackberry
2 silver leaf maple

Saturday we were scheduled to go to a farm where they raise grassfed meat (cow, pig, lamb) and farm vegetables and milk cows but Adam wasn't feeling well. I'm not comfortable driving that far away and leaving him home. So instead we decided to start planting.

We knew it would take us a long time, but I didn't think it would take this long. Maybe John knew better. I also think that since we live on farm land the ground isn't that hard. But um, it is, according to John and Adam. It took 3 full days to get 49 holes dug. John dug most of them; Adam assisted on some of them; and I think Adam actually dug 3 of them.

Saturday we got in about 10 of the crapes. We had to go and get the stakes to hold everything up (thanks to the guys at Tractor Supply) and then to Home Depot to get all the compost and manure because no one in our small town has anymore now. For some reason people still plant mostly in the summer which is beyond me because it's soooo stinking HOT! Thankfully the temp was only around 90 for the weekend, but it still felt a lot hotter. We had the littles playing outside during the day and it went much smoother with not so much bickering. Good plan for the future, or so we thought. John also splurged and got us one of those 10x10 tents so we could work in shade. We did for the most part but did not move every time we dug a hole. Oh, also, while we were at HD I asked Saul (who was the guy that tipped us off about all the trees being 1/2 price) if anymore trees had been marked down and low and behold the southern red oak had! Don't get me wrong, they are still expensive, but we have no shade! And this one is huge, maybe 15 feet high. And for the wonderful fee of $55 they'll deliver which is a good thing because there is no way we could have gotten this thing home! Oh, and we didn't pay for it until we got home because Saul was looking up the price of it. Did you know HD will let you pay for things over the phone with your HD card?






Sunday we planted the other 9 crapes, 4 apples (we discovered that I forgot to plant one in the dark), and 2 figs. The littles fought and cried, and hit and screamed, and whined and whined and whined some more. We spent a lot of time referring, putting kids in timeout on the driveway facing away, and feeling the sun. At this point everyone had a nice red tan going. We did put some sunscreen on (forgot it Saturday). We aren't crispy, but we are nicely reddened. Adam hardly has any red, that should tell you where he spent most of his day. ;-) Our neighbor so kindly offered to get us something from Walmart if we needed, so I said sure, bring us some lunch. I was kidding, she wasn't. We asked for fried chicken and okra from the deli and a box of popcorn so the kids could have an easy snack outside. She brought that and 4 cookies and 3 brownies from a bake sale and then she wouldn't let me pay her back! Isn't it great to have a sweet neighbor? We had lunch in our spider chairs (those chair that fold up) under the tent with some great shade and also enough for dinner . The best breeze was blowing all day (all weekend really) and of course we had our steady supply of ice cold water from inside. We used the same 7 water bottles for 3 days and kept refilling them about 3x a day and partially freezing them.




Monday we were barely able to move. We decided to treat the kids to a breakfast of donuts and chocolate milk (we had jalapeno kolaches) since they had been outside for 2 days. And we bought a coke (gasp!) for some extra boost. When I went to plant the first oleander (after planting the final fig) I realized there were 3 separate plants in each pot! We got 21 plants out of 7 pots! What a deal!!! So 21 oleander, 2 pecan, and 1 big 2ft x 5ft hole dug for the red oak. Not a bad day at all. Dinner was at the trough (aka Sirloin Stockade) and very late (8pm). I wound up stepping on a very tough stem of a weed and it went through my crocs into my foot! John had to drive the truck over to me and I came in, bathed everyone, while John and Adam worked on that moster hole some more. My foots ok, but it sure did hurt. No more croc wearing on our land. Not until grass appears.












I think that's about it for our weekend. It was good (except for the bad behavior of small children) and so much was accomplished. Now our bodies need to recover.

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