our working week

One week of school down and 39 more to go, but who's counting? Actually it's been pretty nice and easy with the kids in school. They are happy and enjoy every minute. I can't wait until Jacob is back in school either. He is just happier when he is there.This week was a crazy one. We had moved trees Tuesday through Thursday. On Friday we were in the dump trucks hauling more shredded bark in. Halfway through the day, we got a call saying McKay had a bloody nose and a bloody eye. Being stuck close to Rexburg in the dump truck, I called: a good friend who lived in Rexburg, the doctor, and made it to the school to still have to stop the bloody nose. It turns out (from what the nurse said at my pediatrician's office) that the tear duct is connected to your sinus so as long as it wasn't "gushing" out of the eye and the eye wasn't discolored that she was okay (we also had to watch her the rest of the day.) What had happen was her eye would fill up in the corner and she would actually "cry" blood. I didn't actually see this as it had stopped before I arrived. So this is what it looks like after working all day on Saturday. We are only "healing" (covering with bark) in the poplars as we move them for now so it should go a lot faster and quicker in the next week. Hopefully by tomorrow at noon the poplars will be finished. We are on a deadline as Jacob starts school on September 10th and I don't want to be stuck doing this by myself.There were a few questions in the comments last time that I will try to answer. Back in 2007 we got a permit to remove the topsoil and open a tree farm / nursery. The last two years we have planted over 10,000 trees and shrubs to grow and sale. The pit is the way it is for a couple reasons.

1. It's easier to water them. No weeds and no mud.
2. It's a barrier from the terrible Idaho wind and snow.
3. The topsoil funded the nursery with in hopes that the nursery will eventually fund itself.

Click for one of the posts from the past on planting.

a long haul

This is our pit. Some people don't like it, some do. It's finally flat and ready for the trees and shrubs to be moved up here. So for the next two weeks, this is our project. It should be rather simple. BUT....
This is where the trees were put last year after they were planted. We had a temporary water system set up and they were supposed to be upfront last fall. Our plans didn't work out that way. One bonus is the weeds kept the plants shaded.So Jacob and I have been inching our way back little by little.We got roughly 300 moved today. With the poplars, we have to prune them as we go. Hopefully the other trees and shrubs won't take so long. There is still a big space to fill.

Green thumb and a Fall favorite

Since it's in the air, I figured a post wouldn't hurt. Fall has been here for a couple months for us. Some nights has been 20 degrees or colder. We have been enjoying the nice days at 60+ though.

McKay was so excited about her garden this year. Without fail she would water it everyday, and inspect it several times a day. While she was in Utah for a month during the summer, she would have me send pictures via text messages so she could see the growth. Many of times, I would get a text asking if I had watered her garden. She made it back just in time to enjoy the first peas. Since it was planted later (end of June), we knew that some of it might not make it or get very big. She still would come in everyday to tell us how big everything was getting. A garden does bring real satisfaction.

One of my fall favorites is banana squash. She had two of them before the frost killed the plant. (Notice the black plant in the background.) I like to cut the squash up into squares, put it in a casserole dish, and add butter and brown sugar. This is probably my favorite vegetable of all time. McKay's squash were some of the best we have had in a long time.

You really know it is good when Kirsten snuck up to Jake after dinner and whispered in his ear, "The squash was really good, but don't tell McKay."