We spent most of the afternoon digging holes and distributing peat moss and mulch and water. Our little forest is taking shape, one-day people will look up at those trees and wonder about the people who planted them.

First, we planted one Water Birch not too far from the street. These trees grow to 20 or more feet and have lovely leaves and weave back and forth in a breeze. They don’t mind salt from the snow crews, and they grow quickly.

I probably won’t be around to see them fully grown, but I hope I get to see them start to shoot up, like the others. There is a circle of green around the farmhouse. That’s a lovely legacy to leave behind.

We planted this second Water Burch right next to Ed Gulley’s wonderful “Goose” metal sculpture, it graces the front of the house, close to the driveway and the road. Behind it are the maple trees we planted when we first moved in, along with a Magnolia bush,  a new Sycamore, and a sickly Maple Tree we also planted this afternoon. We call it our Rescue Tree, I named it Red.

This water-starved Maple was the last tree on the lot of a nursery nearby. I think they had abandoned watering the tree, it looked nearly dead to me. But it isn’t, I watered it for a long time yesterday, and the morning, it seemed to have perked up a bit.

It is definitely alive. I’m sure this tree will make it, barring some awful storm.

We filled the hole with water before putting in the peat moss, then again when the peat moss was in and soaked it again when we put the mulch around the hole we dug.

Tomorrow, our friend Eve Marko is coming to have lunch with us, we might catch a movie later on in the day. We both love planting trees, we do it every year. I’m not sure there is much room for more trees around the farmhouse, we might just have to move some bushes around instead.

I love the feeling I get when I think of those root balls, all crammed in the plastic buckets, and how sweet it must be for them to spread out and into the soil.

Or God forbid, just relax.