My Subaru Baja, "Oliver", loaded down with tree planting supplies.
The weather finally broke and we were able to spend a weekend planting trees on the farm. We bought two cherry and one apple--the start of what we hope will grow to be a tasty orchard.
We were all ready to plant when we forgot that there are over 50 head of cattle roaming our land. (Our neighbor is leasing the land to run cattle on our lush grass until June when all the buyers will haul them out West to be fattened up with grain before slaughter.)
How in the world were we supposed to protect these baby trees from 200 hooves? So we went back to the drawing board (aka Lowe's) to buy more supplies.
$200 and a carload later we had our solution. We decided to construct a triangular fence using welded fence wire, steel fence posts and zipties. We also had to purchase a mini sledgehammer, fence post digger and mattock.
Our little bodies sure looked odd swinging that heavy equipment! (Well at least one of us did. ;)
We were all ready to plant when we forgot that there are over 50 head of cattle roaming our land. (Our neighbor is leasing the land to run cattle on our lush grass until June when all the buyers will haul them out West to be fattened up with grain before slaughter.)
How in the world were we supposed to protect these baby trees from 200 hooves? So we went back to the drawing board (aka Lowe's) to buy more supplies.
$200 and a carload later we had our solution. We decided to construct a triangular fence using welded fence wire, steel fence posts and zipties. We also had to purchase a mini sledgehammer, fence post digger and mattock.
Our little bodies sure looked odd swinging that heavy equipment! (Well at least one of us did. ;)
Josh using the mattock to break up the soil for Tree #1-- Our cherry tree.
Me in my sexy farm outfit using our American Made "Bully" shovel to fill in the hole with topsoil (a mixture of compost and good soil). You can see the start of the fence posts we created to keep those pesky cows away from our saplings!
2.5 hours later we had planted & fenced a grand total of...
ONE TREE!
We are going back up to the land tomorrow to talk to the grader who is givin us an estimate of how expensive it is going to be to build our 1/2 mile long driveway. So hopefully we can finish planting the other two trees.
ONE TREE!
We are going back up to the land tomorrow to talk to the grader who is givin us an estimate of how expensive it is going to be to build our 1/2 mile long driveway. So hopefully we can finish planting the other two trees.