Spring Planting is Done!!

All 2187 trees are in the ground! They've been watered and the new field and areas around where we planted have all been cleaned up. This means the rocks and clods of dirt that accumulate around where the holes are dug, have been picked up from around each individual tree. This makes it possible to mow around the trees. Also, all of the 2500 established trees have been fertilized. It's been a busy few weeks!!

We are getting rain right now and are all rejoicing that we get a week off from watering! yeah!! But, the mowing will soon begin.

These are just various pictures of all our planting days........

Nannie Boo Boo and Caleb

Break time--Soda time (Tracie and Hannah)

Break Time (Nannie Boo Boo and Poppie)

Tree Field by the Gift Shop

Tree Field by the Gift Shop different angle

Dakota and Seth planting....trailer behind them. Gift Shop will be built in front of the trailer.

Planting more trees in this top field

Hannah & Caleb sitting in the shade and watching all the fun!

My kind of work! :0)

Nannie Boo Boo getting a tree out of the box to plant

David helping Poppie by guiding the auger

Canaan Fir

Canaan Fir--looking down from the top

David guiding and rocking the auger

More guiding and rocking the auger--this makes it drill faster (with all the help, they were having a hard time keeping up with us tree planters)

Seth planting a tree--watering barrels in the background

Caleb playing with his big ball while we're planting

Hannah and Caleb swinging and playing (Daddy made the swing for them)

Caleb and his ball

Sweet Hannah

Precious smile

I got paid extra to take all the photographs....so to keep from having to plant, I took a lot of the kids! hehehe!!

Nannie Boo Boo and Tony planting

Dakota planting a tree

Dakota, Poppie, Jorge planting trees--Caleb standing guard over them!!

David getting all the excess dirt out of the holes

Hannah fetching trees from the box for all the planters

Tony digging all the excess dirt from the holes

Working away

Hannah and the tree that she planted all by herself!

Jorge planting a tree

The work never ends....

David helping Poppie

This is the area of last year's field where we lost so many Fir trees. We're having to dig up the dead trees and redig the hole for the new tree. We had to rent a two-man hand-held auger in order to dig the holes since the tractor cannot fit between our little trees. They dug 60 holes with this thing.

Poppie and David getting ready to auger

Augering away! And boy did this thing rough them up. They had bruises on their legs from it.

Caleb guarding the wheelbarrow dirt--we needed extra dirt around some of the trees.

Caleb waving at me from under that hat

And off he goes......my little cowboy!

Cleaning out the holes

Poppie brought the 4-wheeler with the trailer and some barrels with water so we could "water in" the new trees.

We sit a milk jug (or two) by each tree. The jug has a tiny hole in it at the bottom side and it slowly drains out onto the tree.

Meanwhile David is hand digging some holes they forgot with the hand-held auger....bummer! It's already been returned.

Nannie Boo Boo planting the VERY LAST TREE!!! Celebration time!

Two days later here we are watering the new White Pine seedlings in the gift shop tree field. 1000 trees! Watered them all in one day....David, me and the kids.

Hannah and Caleb were a big help. We couldn't have done it without them picking up the jugs behind us and getting them ready for the next set of trees.

David carrying the picked up jugs down the field for the next barrels of water.

Caleb's Version of the Song "The B.I.B.L.E"

A tried and true children's song:
The B. I. B. L. E.
Yes, that's the book for me
I stand upon
The Word of God
The B. I. B. L. E.

I was listening to him walking around the house singing this the other day:
The B. I. B. L. E.
Yes, that's the book for me
I stand up in
The world for God
The B. I. B. L. E.

Too cute! I told him that I like his version best! He's not sure what I'm talking about. :0)

Oh Me Achey Back....and other parts!

We've been down in our tree fields til dark most nights for over a week now--planting, watering, fertilizing. It's been a lot of hard work. We are all tired and hurting. My back, legs, neck, shoulders....you get the picture. It only hurts when I breathe! hehehe!

I got really tickled at Caleb because one night after working all day and helping (you know the 3 yr. old kind of help), he said...."Daddy, my legs have a headache." :0)

Chicken-Catcher Caleb

Caleb decided that he was tired of the escapee chickens scratching in the yard, so he decided that he would catch them and put them back in the fenced in chicken area.
And he did!!!..........

So proud of himself

Caleb and his "catch"!

He is saying "bad chicken"!

He is just toooo cute! We call him the Farmer Gray gonnabe