Planting Trees

 (Checking out Papa's new tractor! He had a passenger seat installed, just for the purpose of hauling kids around with him-of course they love to ride in there)

That weekend was the first time we've been up to play/work this spring so far, and it felt so good to be up there!

 (aspens, cottonwoods, and ponderosa pines)

Wes and my father-in-law had ordered a couple hundred trees earlier in the year, and they were shipped to us a couple of weeks ago. We kept them at home for a couple of weeks until we had time when the weather would be nice to plant.

We planted about 140 of them at the ranch, almost all near the pond. We did Ponderosa Pine, Cottonwood, and Aspen trees. Thankfully for us, our good friends came and helped for several hours.

My father-in-law worked on his new tractor digging the holes for the trees, and then someone would use a post-hole digger to get the excess dirt out. Then a couple of people would hold the trees while the dirt was put back in. Someone else would use a hoe to create a little well around the tree where water could collect. Then another tractor holding a ton of water came along to water each tree.

(even though she loved playing in the dirt, she was DONE by the end of a long day with no nap- I thought she might have had a possible concussion after a hard fall at our ward's Easter party, so I had kept her awake all day)

The trees are tiny, and we know the survival rate is not good, but we hope at least a few survive it. It was a ton of work! The kids (all 12 that we had there) did awesome, but faded quickly towards the end (me too!). We let them play afterwards while we had hotdogs. Morgan absolutely loved playing in the dirt with free reign. Unfortunately for me and her, I had completely forgotten all about sunscreen (it was only in the 60's, but the elevation is so high that its easy to burn without feeling like you are getting burned); my arms were on fire the next few days, and poor Morgan's face burned pretty bad too.