A Time for Planting

Over the weekend we bought three, 15 gallon trees to plant in the yard. Between cloud bursts of rain I managed to get two planted which was a small triumph because it has been raining A LOT lately. The forecast for this week was rain, rain and more rain and I didn't know when I would be able to get the last one planted. Digging a giant hole when the ground is soaking wet is not fun at all.

But I did see a window of opportunity. The forecast for today called for showers in the afternoon. Perfect. I got up early to dig me a big hole and plant me a tree before the afternoon rains came. The radar was on my side showing storms way east of us...awesome....what could possibly go wrong?

As I finished the digging of the ginormous hole, I noticed the sky was starting to darken a bit. Not a big deal. Sometimes the sky will get a little dark and nothing will happen. I figured that as long as there was no thunder I probably had some time and besides....I was almost done. I cut the bucket off the base of the tree and sat it in the hole.. then I heard a rumble. I looked at the sky behind me and it had quite suddenly gotten insanely darker...much darker than it had been all week. Oooooooooooh crap.

With with one hand holding the tree and the other working the shovel, I started quickly filling in dirt around the tree while chanting a certain four letter word. I heard another rumble of thunder which was followed by rain. Not just a sprinkle of rain mind you. No no the weather gods pushed the "Instant Hurricane Rain" button. Splooooosh.

There comes that moment when you realize that you are so wet that it just doesn't matter anymore. That moment occurred about 20 seconds after it started raining. I was completely and utterly soaked. Then the winds picked up (I found out later they reached 60 mph) and the tree was weaving all over the place. Things had gone from zero to suck in under 30 seconds.

As I continued the struggle of getting fill dirt around the tree I thought "This is actually kinda fun..its like I'm a pirate out at sea." Arrr. As I yo-ho-hoed, splashing in the mud puddles that were forming around me I had another less fun thought, I have one hand on a tree and another on a shovel...and its storming and lighting....wow this could end really badly. Then I heard fire engine sirens.....hummm..mostly likely responding to a lighting strike. Well ok then...

Wanting to spare my wife the embarrassment of having to tell people I died planting a $150 tree, I staked the tree as best I could and headed to the garage to dry out and wait for the rains to stop. After about 45 minutes the rains died down.

From all the tossing around the fill dirt had sloshed under the tree, so when I stood it up straight, it sat up way too high. Time to start over. Trying to yank a wet tree out of a muddy, wet hole was like trying to pull Excalibur out of a boulder. With a huge suction noise the tree finally came out and I got to dig out the sloppy, wet, muddy earth which now weighed about 200 lbs.

Eventually, I got the tree planted and staked. In my desire to find the perfect window of opportunity to plant that tree...a time when the ground wouldn't be too wet...I ended up picking the worst possible time I could have ever imagined. Yay for me!!