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Busy day today!

First off, we went down to my work (dropping Justin off at Deb's dad's house first, at Justin's request) and had breakfast with Santa. Rachel and Brandon had pancakes, waffles, eggs, sausage, bacon, muffins, bagels, and maybe more. Rachel is thrilled that Santa gave her a watercolor set that has glow-in-the-dark colors, and Brandon is enjoying his Little People and mini-van - even if Santa's elves did mishear and selected a gift for a 1 year old girl instead of boy (the mini-van is pink and purple; Brandon thinks it's great; my favorite color is purple and Rachel says all the boys but one in her math class think pink is a great color - it's even her boyfriend's favorite!)

We came home, ate lunch, and then Justin and I started Mission Impossible: planting ten trees in ten inches of snow! Actually, the system worked pretty well, going better than the last round of trees that were frozen from their Day-After-Turkey-Day delivery until we came home that Saturday. Since we couldn't lug the wheelbarrow around, we used a three bucket system - one bucket, with about an inch or so of water, held the tree; the second bucket was used to hold dirt dug out with a pointedy spade; and the third held two scoops of mulch, which has even more fiber and nutrients than Raisin Bran! We used a transfer shovel to break through the thin ice coating and clear a square foot or so of snow before digging the hole. With three exceptions, all trees were planted in forest loam - leaf litter, sticks, roots, rocks, and dark black dirt. The other three were slightly more difficult to dig, as they were in areas landscraped by the developer, thus thick clay, just starting to become usable after two years of effort and Lawns Alive! fertilizer. One of us would then hold the tree - which became easier once I remembered Rachel's bright yellow foam kneel-in-the-garden thing (my leg thawed out later, with the cars heat on high) - and the other would scrape and shape the dirt back into the hole. We would then dump out the bucket of mulch, spread that, and then pour the water from the bucket and repeat for the next tree.

2 Canadian hemlock - 1 each: tulip tree, river birch, bur oak, red oak, Washington hawthorn, Sargent crabapple, gray dogwood, and an arrowwood viburnum.

After that, I headed out to Country Junction (World's Largest General Store!) and couldn't find what I wanted there. I went to a custom shop yesterday, but the guy wasn't there, and with everything going on today I didn't get to stop by there. I finally decided to try one more place, looking for three somethings which I will not mention, just in case Deb reads this. At this place, I found them, ready-made in the size I needed.

Came home, and chatted with my dad for a bit, discussing CEOs, business trends, and other such things. His spirits seemed pretty high given the situation. Still 3-5 days before we get definitive results, and the tests yesterday really left him drained. Keep those good thoughts coming, and drop by [livejournal.com profile] patrixa to offer some to her as well!

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Mina Ellyse

November 2024

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