HARD-WORKING FAMILY
I gave Ryan a lemon tree for Valentine's Day, so yesterday we planted it. And of course, it wasn't just digging a hole and plopping the tree in it. We wanted a small tree to the left of our driveway, but the lawn there has some elevation issues. At the sidewalk, the dirt was piled up several inches above the concrete, and there were lumps and dips and poor drainage. So, with a pickaxe and shovels, we dug up all our grass, hauled a huge amount of dirt to a pile in the back yard, and graded the dirt according to our resident drainage engineer's specifications.
Afte all that work, the actual planting of the tree took no time at all. But the tree, which looked so large in my Costco shopping cart, barely fit in my Jeep, and required such a large red bow on Valentine's Day, looks rather puny in the great outdoors!
But the best part was working outside as a family. Jared "helped" with his own shovel, rake, and hoe. When we were out buying another shovel for Mommy, we saw a yard sale and bought him a scooter. So he rode that around, too. Or alternatively, he sat in his new kid-sized folding camp chair and supervised. Zach is quite sick, but that meant that he was perfectly happy sitting in his stroller and watching us. Ryan and Susie are a bit worse for the wear. We're exhausted and sore and Susie's found some bruises. Ryan's got some toasty epidermis, too. But the weather was great and we had a whole lot of fun. And what with our getting screens on the windows and Ryan hacking out the extra mulberry branches, we feel like real home improvement types!