Because of the w
armth, Don wanted to start planting in the morning, something we usually don't do because the grass is still wet from the sprinklers running. It went so well that by 12:30 we had planted
two apple trees, a McIntosh and a Cortland.LEFT:
Cortland
RIGHT: McIntosh
Feeling emboldened, after lunch we went out to plant the peach tree, and that's when the good streak ended. We hit the rock shelf in the first hole we dug, and there's no way you can get through a rock shelf. The builder dynamited the pad we live on to clear the land, and since Don and I don't have access to dynamite, we decided to move the hole.
In the second hole we dug we hit a large rock, and after finding the edges of it, we knew it was going to be too big to lift out of the hole, even if we did get it dislodged. So it was onto trying to dig a third hole, the catch being, trying to find a place that would work with the other fruit tr
ees and previous landscaping.I guess the third time is the charm, because we hit rocks small enough that could be removed, and finally got the peach tree planted. It was now 4PM, and the peach tree had taken longer than the two apple trees put together. We still had to clean up and put tools away, so it wasn't until 5PM we were in the house and getting cleaned up.
Now onto the really big news of the day:
- Our hummingbird came back today for the first time this season.
- I saw the Bobcat in the woods; it was about 4' off the ground in a tree when it leaped onto the forest floor to catch it's prey. It all went so fast I have no idea what, or even if, it caught anything.
- I was in the house when I heard something large land on our back hill. At first I thought one of our wild turkeys was trying to take a dirt bath. But upon closer examination, I saw it was our Red-tailed Hawk, it had pounced on the back hill trying to catch a chipmunk. Afterward he just sat there a minute, trying to figure out how he'd missed his prey.
- Last but not least, I found out why my Coreopsis isn't blooming, the chipmunks are eating the buds off. I'm going to have to find a pepper spray I can use that won't be appealing to their palette. Because another thing I noticed, we have baby chipmunks everywhere!
