Left work early last Friday because (1) the back yard had spent two weeks drying out thanks to all the ridiculously nice weather we've been having, (2) the weather people said it would be raining all weekend (suprise, they were wrong), and (3) it occurred to me that I had spent the holiday last Monday working, and I wanted to recoup that time. So I went home and visited with my mom, sister, Laura's mom, and of course Laura (they were all visiting to help stitch together some new curtains), had lunch, and planted a tree. Finally we have some green in the back yard! And yesterday I planted a second one!
I had previously planted one of the Chinese Pistache, but they are deciduous and currently have no leaves (they're just sticks right now). The two fern pines (Podacarpus), by contrast, are evergreen, and add a nice splash of green life to our sad, dull, brown back yard. A quick glance at the other back yards I can see from my back yard shows me that ours is the first to have anything planted. Which is a little sad because the other houses on our side of the street have been inhabited about a year longer than ours. Maybe they all had the same problems I had. Or not.
The most fun I had during the whole process happened at two different times. Friday afternoon I was removing lodgepoles from the first tree I planted because they were too far apart. One came out no problem. The other gave me trouble. I rocked it back and forth in an attempt to loosen it, and on one of the rocks I pulled too hard, causing it to snap near the ground. When it broke loose it whacked my right ear, which hurt ... a bit, but luckily did no visible damage.
The second fun event happened Sunday evening as I was driving lodgepoles into the ground for the second fern pine. I'm up on a ladder, pile driving the pole with this heavy tool that you use by sliding it up, then forcible driving it down. One one up stroke it came off the pole, and on the subsequent down stroke it, of course, struck the top of the pole. Having no where else to go, it rocked sideways, and came to rest on my head. Actually it broke the plastic strap of the earmuffs I was wearing to deaden the sound of the pile driving, and left a pleasant little lump on my nogging. Best part of it all was that I managed to NOT fall off the ladder and break ... something ... following the thump, which did kinda make me feel silly for a half second. Anyway, no sickness or follow-up ill effects, just the realization of stupidity on my part.
Ramble machine off. Sorry about the length of today's post.
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