Digging

We love having a pretty good sized back yard. It was one of the selling points on this house. But the trees in the yard were either dead or palm trees. We don't see any need or use for palm trees. They don't give you much shade and they certainly don't give you any fruit. We decided the palm trees needed to go. The dead trees were removed a few months ago when we first moved in but the palm trees have been waiting for us to really get serious about removing them. The were planted in the ground still in their pots. I don't know exactly why they would leave the plastic pots around the trees roots but we figured that was wrong in many ways so we needed to get serious about digging them up. Well last week we got serious. 

 For months the boys had been on and off digging around the trees. That is how we knew about them being in their plastic pots still.  But when I started to see fruit trees in the stores I knew it was time to get them out and stop playing at digging.

I went out and started to dig. It took about an hour of hard physical labor with the shovel to dig all around the pot and loosen it from the dirt. But the first tree was out.

 We worked on the next tree a following day and finally paid one of the young men in our neighborhood to dig out the last one. He needed funds for camp and I was tired of digging and even had blisters on my hands despite wearing gloves.

But these trees are now in the ground and the palm trees are out. We hope to have apples, peaches and plums in a few years.  Let us just hope the trees make it despite the lack of water in CA. It did rain a tiny bit last week (a drop in the bucket compared to what we actually need! We will take it though. Every little bit counts.) but the sun is shining again and more rain doesn't seem to be in the works. We are going to be in for a long hot, dry summer. 

My parents have been told to cut their water usage by 50%. That is going to be difficult! We keep praying for Rain and lots of snow in the mountains!