Spring Planting

Hooray! We put in 2 more fruit trees! Last year, we planted a peach tree. This year we planted an apple and a cherry tree. Maddo and Peachy were really excited to help. Did I tell you about how helpful they were? They were looking for a project and decided to dig a hole for the new tree. Homie and I said, "Fine." and showed them where to put it. After many minutes of contented digging, Maddo came in and said, "We hit a rock and couldn't go any farther." Then she added, "Also, the hole has a little water bubbling up from the bottom of it." Oh! Great! I was afraid to go look. Peachy thought it was pretty convenient. "It's a self watering hole!" She exclaimed. Well, it took about a month for Homie to fix the broken sprinkler pipe. It was quite a doozy to get at, then he had the wrong repair piece, then the pipe broke worse . . . After about three weekends of attempts, he got it fixed. We thought it would be such a simple thing to put a little tree in the ground! Never underestimate the potential complexity of a seemingly simple household project!

Because the tree had been in the garage for a month waiting to be planted, it got used to the warmer climate and started to get leaves on it. It had lots of lovely little leaves when we planted it. It looked so happy and eager to begin growing in the ground. We were a little worried about what would happen if it frosted in the night, and so every morning we looked outside to make sure the tree was ok. About 3 mornings after it was planted, we looked out and saw that the tree had no leaves! Oh no! We thought the frost had got it. Homie went outside to investigate. There were no dead leaves on the ground. Then he noticed that the smallest branch was much shorter than previously. Something had come in the night and CHOMPED our tree! Friends told us it was deer. We have never even seen a deer in our area, but something must have come in through the hole in the fence! Aaaarrrggg! The next night, a few children volunteered to sleep in front of the trees with thier BB guns. That was about a month ago, and the tree seems to have recovered ok. We barricaded the fence, and are still trying to get around to fixing it. We estimate it will take us one Saturday to replace the missing panel. However, after our last attempt at a simple project, I think I'd better plan on about a month of effort!