Looks like the verdicts are in with the freeze impact. Most of the trees have at least a partial bloom, except the highbush cranberries and viburnum (which are usually the first to bloom).
The apples, cherries, nectarines, and plums all are putting on the blossoms.
Yesterday Grandpa Dave and G’ma Ann came down for Grandparent’s Day for Martin’s Kindergarten class. Martin had a great time showing off his classroom. But Linda got the biggest surprise of all, two stacking barrister bookcases circa 1906. They were originally her grandfather’s furniture and have been from Iowa, to Arizona, to Minnesota, and now back to Iowa.
They look great in the living room, flanking the entertainment center and just seem to belong. Linda can still smell her grandmother’s house in the bookcases!
Over Saturday and Sunday, we managed to get 150 white pines in the ground. All the kids were out of the house on Saturday night, so after a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning, we got 55 in before heading off to church!
Here’s Linda near the end of the row along the east pasture. Notice the two boards used to measure the distance between trees and the distance from the fenceline.
Stage two is watering the trees – the mobile water hauler (stock tank and garden tractor) work better than the big tractor when it is this muddy and wet.
In the 10+ years we’ve lived here, we’ve never had water in the basement. I attribute that to the siting of the house, on the highest point of land on the property, even if it is a little closer to the road than most farmhouses.
Driving home from swim lessons with Martin on Wednesday night, I jinxed us when after driving home and seeing all the full ditches, temporary lakes in fields, and overflowing creeks, Martin asked if our house would flood. I said no, we never had any troubles because our house was build in a good place. Thursday morning there was water in the basement and the floor drain was not working. I think the water in the drain field is higher than the level of the basement, so it has no where to go. It also looks like the water is coming up through the floor. There is good sloping all around the house and new gutters and downspouts, so I think it just may be a matter of super-saturated ground. We’ve had more than 6 inches of rain in the span of a few days before, but not on top of an already satured soil.
So Linda came home from work at 9:30 to see if the level was rising or falling and it was rising, so I left work and stopped at a Menards in Des Moines to look for a pump. The whole aisle of pumps, sump and otherwise was cleared out. I stopped at another one on the periphery of town and they had a small pump to attach to a garden hose, so I used that to get the water out. There wasn’t a lot of water, perhaps 2 inches deep, so things aren’t floating, so it could be worse. Â (all of you that have had water in a basement know what a pain that can be.) It seems like as of this morning, the inflow has stopped, but now it’s off to get a new dehumidifier as the existing one ran all night and didn’t produce any water. Meanwhile, the 150 trees wait to get planted…
Here’s this week’s Thingamajig Thursday entry.
Also check out the last thingamajig answer.
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As always, put your guess in a comment below.