the most epic arbor day celebration ever

Now that our kitchen remodel is finished, and with no major projects on the renovation horizon, I had visions of leisurely weekend mornings drinking coffee, afternoons spent reading or gardening or lounging in the hammock, and evenings spent with a glass of wine, trying a fancy new recipe in our fancy new kitchen.

Well.

Let me tell you about last weekend.

Actually, it started early last week.  One of neighbors isn't big on the whole "house upkeep" thing. She is a lovely person when we run into her in the driveway, and she hasn't even held a grudge against us for calling the cops on her granddaughter's underage drinking party last spring, but she doesn't do a thing to her house and her yard is a mess.

We planted about 15 arbor vitae along the property line last year, but the drainage on that side of the yard isn't great, and the soil was so wet that the trees didn't grow at all because the roots couldn't, well, take root.

My next career will obviously be in botany.

We've been talking about other methods to create a privacy barrier, and last week Matt said, "I ordered some trees to plant on the side yard that thrive in moist soil."

Some trees?  Great!  Fine!  Terrific! I figured "some" trees was 10 or 15.

Well, we went to a First Communion party on Saturday morning, and when we got home, do you know how many trees were in a giant box on our front stoop, shipped straight from the heartland of privacy hedges, aka the great state of Tennessee?

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TREES.

Or, more realistically, ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY 18 INCH TWIGS THAT WILL HOPEFULLY GROW QUICKLY AND IN A ROBUST FASHION.

Anyway, since they were alive, we had to get the trees twigs in the ground quickly.  Matt got to work digging a trench, and I started planting.  At first I thought, "Well I have GOT to write a blog post about this! What a funny little adventure, planting 120 trees twigs!" 

By about tree twig 37 I said, calmly, "Matt, I want to let you know that I am losing my steam and my good nature."

(I was not joking.  Here are the trees twigs.)

But, we plowed through and planted 60 trees twigs on Saturday.  And then I drove my muddy self straight to the Acme and bought us two pizzas and a big box of mozzarella sticks for dinner, I am not even kidding and not even sorry.

We sat in the kitchen and ate our junk food and watched it rain.  And rain.  AND RAIN.  All night long.  The trench Matt dug turned into a downright canal.  I walked outside Sunday to assess the damage and swore I saw a goldfish swimming in it.

Matt tried to "shovel" the water out, but it was an ill-fated pursuit. 

I planted the remaining sixty trees on dry(ish) ground, which worked out because we learned that we didn't have enough for the entire yard and so, Matt ordered thirty more trees  twigs, due to arrive tomorrow.  

I won't lie, I'm secretly thrilled that I am going out of town this weekend.

Matt's on his own to plant the remaining trees twigs and he also decided that he wanted to remedy the poor drainage situation as best he could, and I literally just walked into our living room to take this photo.

It arrived in the mail today and is some sort of a well that is apparently going to be buried in our yard this weekend.

I'll make sure to stock up on mozzarella sticks before I go.

This project may require two boxes.