 This spring we had the great idea that we would plant some grass in the backyard, put in 6 fruit trees, triple the size of our garden, and put in a sprinkler / drip system that would feed the needs of everything that grows in the backyard. Now that sounds like a great goal. However, I have no experience in the landscape department. I thought that it shouldn't be that hard, so off we went in tackling the seemingly easy. First off we decided that the nasty red dirt that we have will never sustain any plant life, so we added 10 cubic yards of top soil (about 12 tons). Then we started the |
 wonderful work of spreading it around the backyard and leveling out the ground with it. We looked at the level of dirt in the backyard and figured that about this much dirt had left the yard as a direct result of the rains since we have lived in this house so we decided to replinish it. Now the spreading of the dirt around isn't all that bad (except I have to fill up the wheel borrow tire every time I do some moving), but the boys really like to play in the dirt. This of course poses its own challenges on the plumbing and |
 vacuuming systems we have. After we did the spreading around of the soil (on top of our red dirt) then we went and Dug some holes for the trees to be planted in. The digging of these holes wasn't the most exciting activity that I have embarked in so far, but necessary to be done. The holes each measured about 3 feet in diameter and between 3 and 4 feet deep. These pictures don't show the finished product, but give an idea nonetheless. After digging these holes and removing all of the dirt, clay, rock, and decomposing lime stone we decided that we should fill each hole with a mixture of the topsoil and mulch such that the tree would at least have |
 half a chance to grow before it encountered the red death. We ended up planting 2 peach trees, 2 apple trees, a self polinating pear tree and a self polinating cherry tree. After talking to some people perhaps an additional cherry may have been a better choice and left out the pear, but what is done is done, and unless one of these dies, I am not changing them. After we dug the holes for the trees, then we started design for the sprinkler system. This meant that we purchased all materials (all for seeable anyway) and then embarked on the digging of the trenches for the piping to be placed in. Looking back, perhaps I did some of these activities in the wrong order, but again it is too late to change now. The |
 experience with the digging of the holes for the trees led me to believe that it would be a better use of my time to rent a trencher and dig the trenches all at once and then perhaps I would be able to lay the pipe in the same day and then everything would be finished. How Naive. I rented the trencher from a place in Holbrook (because it was the biggest unit I could find and also the cheapest) and then started work. I took a Friday off from work thinking that I could complete the entire task in a Friday / Saturday combination. The trenching went surprisingly well. I was very impressed by the ease that this machine cut through the red earth in the backyard. This little |
 machine weighed in at 2,700 lbs and was fully hydraulic. It is made by Toro and has a multitude of attachments that can be placed on the front of it, and if it wasn't for the price tag to purchase one of these, I might be tempted to own one (they are about $10.00 per pound or about $27,000). The trenching itself only took about 2.5 hours to dig all of the ditches that I figured I needed. I did leave about 12 linear feet of trench un-trenched because of a sewer line and a power cable that I wanted to avoid destroying (I will use a pick for that later). The boys were really impressed by the machine and I had to stop trenching several time to get them out of the hole and away from the blades. |
 The driving to Holbrook and back probably added about the same price to the rental in gas as the blasted thing cost, but being able to be back at the house by 3:00 pm with the rest of the afternoon ahead of me kept me in good spirits. I decided to spend the remainder of the afternoon planting the trees and then on Saturday I would run all of the pipes and get the drip system hooked up. Well I did managed to get all the 6 trees in and watered before night fall, but not by much. Then that evening Terre reminded me that I had made a commitment for Saturday and odds were that I wouldn't be able to finish any of the piping. Sure
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 enough, I was to go to Phoenix on Saturday to be in attendance at Terra's nephews first trip through the temple. It was a nice time and had fun. When we returned home around 11:30 PM I watered the trees and noticed that lots of the dirt had been forced back into the ditches that were newly dug. This is one item that I had neglected. The wind. Come to find out that the wind blew in excess of 55 mph the day I was gone. I knew that I needed to spend the next Saturday on the ditches in order to save me from having to re-dig them by hand. Well let me skip a week forward until yesterday. Now this is going to require some background information, at work I am in charge of the replacement of our FiberFlow Drum (rotary drum |
 pulper) and I have been waiting for its arrival since the 25th of March. For one reason or another it has been delayed a day here and a day there. In fact I have had a crane and a crew of contractors on site at work waiting to unload it since this past Monday, and wouldn't you know it, it arrived at 5:00pm Friday evening. This meant that I had the privilege of working on Saturday to get the blasted thing unloaded and staged in the proper position at work such that work could begin on the prepartory work to this drum prior to our annual outage when it will be replaced at the mill. That meant that on Saturday when I was to be digging out the dirt from my ditches the wind was again filling them up, and now
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 will have another week to do so until I have enough time to get the pipe in there. This drum is fairly good sized, and perhaps I should include a few photos of it just to give you an idea of what I am talking about. When I finish up the project I will post a letter with the photos of the project so that you can enjoy it as well. So now I am in the same boat once again looking forward to the one day that I get a week to work on the back yard. You know, when you look at the planted trees, it sure makes you wonder how these little sticks will (or should be) giving peaches in a few years. I really hope that it works out. I am looking forward to some nice juicy peaches that came off of one of my trees in the back yard. In some other news, we have planted 8 jalapeno seeds in the kitchen in a |
 little pot. Out of the 8 planted so far 5 have sprouted and are looking very well. I would love to get the garden planted and ready for these plants as well as all of the rest that will be going in there. As part of the sprinklers, we have included an automatic valve that will automatically water both of our gardens, but then again I have to put it in and get it up and running. I really think that it will work out pretty slick if I can ever find time to get it finished. Maybe after the outage in June I can complete this project. The frustrating thing, is that I would really like it functional to water the trees and garden even if we could forgo the grass until the end of summer. If you notice in the pictures you can see some pvc. that is laid on the ground. The is because our hose is too short to reach the last two trees and we have to run it through the pvc to get water to the last two trees. |
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