We started with bare rooted ash trees. A Desert Ash and a Claret Ash which were delivered by the nice people at the Yarralumla Nursery during the week. We'll use them again. We liked them.
Sean had done a lot of the prep in the preceding weeks, getting the site ready for planting. But there was still a way to go with digging and sifting the soil before we added lots of compost to the holes.
See our makeshift sifter? That was actually quite good fun. A bit like getting ready to make a big cake. Ok, not really, but it's what I told myself as we sifted the umpteenth load.
Then it was time to get the trees out of the bags and into the soil. I loved this part. Really loved it. These trees will be here for a long time, we hope and getting those roots firmly bedded down felt like we were doing something great and important.
After what seemed like hours of hard work on both days, we were done. Two trees, which in autumn will be vibrantly red and brown leaved, are safely, securely planted.
They don't look like much yet, still being dormant. But we're immensely pleased with ourselves. The giant paddock of a yard is now divided in half and as spring approaches, these naked limbs will bud up beautifully and herald the warmer weather. They'll also be a sign that we did something right.
And in a decade or so, we'll have shade.
Recently, Tinkingbell showed us her house and started a meme about why we live where we live. It's kind of hard to compete with someone who has turrets in her house when you live in a standard suburban 1970s brick home, so I didn't bother posting a photo of my house.
But this post goes some way to explaining why we live where we live. We chose this house because
a) we could afford it
b)it was as close to town as we could get for the price
c)there was a decent supermarket nearby and
d)we loved the big back yard that was a blank canvas.
That's why we live where we live. And today we made our mark here in a way that we've long wanted to.
Bring on spring!
Bells
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