Rain on the Horizon?

The first part of our kitchen project is done: Today we painted the last coats of green paint on the last shelves for the last time.  The cabinets are still empty and the boxes and bags and stacks of kitchen things will need to find their way back to their rightful places.  But that will wait.

I absolutely had to get outside to work in the gardens.

By midmorning I was able change from my painting pants to my gardening pants.  And so I commenced planting trees -- we have 6 bareroot fruit trees, 4 oaks and 2 cedars in pots, 3 bareroot grapevines, and one bareroot climbing rose.  Plus 3 roses that need to be moved from planters and put in the ground.  Nineteen plants.  That's a lot of planting.




 After decades of hacking innumerable holes through shale, quartz and clay using a pick, shovel and trowel, it's pure bliss to stand back and watch Bruce position the auger and get a neat hole dug in less than 5 minutes.  What seemed like an impulsive and perhaps foolish purchase when we bought it last autumn, was definitely money well-spent.

The grass should be thick and green

This afternoon's total of tree's planted was a modest five -- three bareroot fruit trees and two cedars.  However, Bruce augered several more holes and I'll work to fill them after school tomorrow.  I'm extremely motivated to get as many trees in the ground as possible by this coming Wednesday because on Thursday (trumpet fanfare) there is a 40% chance of rain.   Today is our 50th straight day without rain, which is a record for our rainy (hah!) season.  The soil right now is dry as dust.  How nice it would be to wake up to the pattering of raindrops soaking in the earth around my baby trees.  It could happen.  Miracles sometimes do.