The Start
Planting trees was new for both of us. I mean, Vickie has planted fruit trees in the past but neither of us had even embarked upon 512, two-year-old evergreen saplings. The beginning started with Cynthia's husband, Gus, and Vickie's husband, Rick, helping to lay out the grid for the babies on April 25th. They needed to be in 8 foot rows, 8 foot apart. This required a giant wheel, some t-posts, spray paint, and four people holding grid lines (thank goodness Cynthia has plenty of children to lend a hand). There may or may not have been some stressful moments which brought back memories of working cattle. This correlation Gus denies vehemently. Additionally, a lot of discussion surrounded an existing horse stall made of metal, wood, and weathered beauty that happened to be on the edge of the tree field (or right in the gosh darn way as some folks claimed). For a million reasons Cynthia and Vickie thought it should stay... one of which included housing a horse drawn sleigh for photo opps. Gus thought it should go and planned to remove it. Stay tuned to see how this discussion plays out.
Once the grid was laid out we needed an auger to drill out the holes. Using a hand drill and a four inch auger we made slow progress. The drill wasn't holding up. Holden, Cynthia's son, has a welding business in which he uses a fuel powered post hole digger. It's a massive tool and would be considerably more efficient. Perfect...he let us borrow it but we still needed an auger that would fit the bigger drill. We resumed operations after the new auger was obtained as well as some lunch. You gotta feed the people if you want them to keep helping. :) Two people on the drill, two people planting, one person mulching around the saplings, and an additional person to pour the water. It took some minutes and a lot of man-power. By the 26th, all the Canaan Firs had been planted on the south side of the field with the Eastern White Pines on the north. Now to keep 'em alive until harvest time...in the next 5-6 years.
A question for you to ponder: What exciting new adventure would you be willing to spend time learning about?
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