Another bunch of plants arrived from the nursery this week, including 10 Sugar Maple Trees, 25 asparagus plants, and 6 butterfly bushes, among other things. I have also acquired 3 more pear trees. I tried to dig holes around the propane tank (big, ugly beast) for the butterfly bushes earlier, but couldn't get down more than an inch, even after running the sprinkler for 30 minutes. I tried again after the big Rain Day storm with the same results, so JP promised to dig shallow holes with the auger for me.
Before attaching the auger to the tractor (it takes both of us, and at least 15 minutes to do it), JP hooked up his new middle buster to clear out the rain water cistern overflow and the grey water drainage trenches. After about 15 minutes, and before he had finished the task, the equipment broke...the blade pulled off the implement!
Plan B: on to digging those holes! We got 5 holes dug for half of the Sugar Maples behind the house and barn, and dug out the Red Maple from the front yard that the bucks killed last Fall. We deliberated for a while where to put the next pear tree in the row...trying to get it far enough away from where the electrical lines go through. Part way through digging that hole, we heard a terrible grinding noise, and the auger quit. I dug out the last 2 pear tree holes by hand...actually re-dug, as we were replacing 2 that died.
Final tally: 3 pears and 5 maples planted, 2 tractor implements broken, 2 very sweaty and dirty individuals. The good news is that the equipment simply needs new shear pins...most tractor equipment is built so that a shear pin breaks before gears or the PTO of the tractor can, so it will be relatively inexpensive and easy to fix. The bad news is that it will be yet another week before I can finish planting the trees!
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