10,000 Daffodils Arrive

I went out this morning to weed the orchard. The daffodil bulbs finally shipped yesterday, so I knew I would soon have planting to begin.

Phil headed out for the unpleasant task of looking at the tractor. He came over after a while. "I think we need a new tractor."

I must say that I was not surprised. I'm a pessimist, so the worst case scenario had already presented itself to me. I took the news rather well.

"No, actually, I fixed it." And he had. A connection had come loose, and though it was difficult to access it with the wrench, he simply needed to tighten it.

He tilled the garlic bed, then reconnected the backhoe. He dug out the oak stump that he started on yesterday.

Next he pulled a tulip poplar stump, with incredibly long laterals.

The third large stump took hours and made an enormous hole, but in the end, it was pulled.

While Phil was digging, a large FedEx truck arrived with a pallet shipment. More than half a ton (1090 pounds) of daffodil bulbs. Phil backed the truck up, and with the FedEx man handing boxes to me, and me handing boxes to Phil, we unloaded the 29 crates of bulbs in short order.

My friend Melanie was visiting, and she said she would be happy to help plant bulbs. Nicely for me, she has planted bulbs before, and had good suggestions on spacing around the trees. I wanted to plant them just inches from the trunk, but she suggested, and I agree, that it would be more prudent to put them a bit further out.

I had pulled a crate, hoping to get a good many in the ground. We have a bulb planter that supposedly helps people plants hundreds (thousands?) an hour. So it was with great chagrin that I hardly was able to plant eleven around the first apple tree. Branches in my hair. The gravel placed around the tree at planting stopped the planter at every step. The concern for the tree's roots to not be entirely cut off.

We headed down to Gracie Lou's grave to plant 100 or so. Amidst the roots and rocks, I think we got about 15 actually in the ground before night fell.

And then, reading the instructions that came with the bulbs, they needed to be unwrapped from their plastic bags and stored in a place where they will not freeze. Hmm.

We moved the 29 crates into Phil's office, and will trust that the bulbs will not freeze in there. It is frustrating ... I ordered these at the end of September, and if they had arrived in shorter order, we would have had the glorious month of October to plant, and not buried the entire office in bulbs. Ah, well, it can't be helped.

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Isaiah's new shoes arrived today. (He was so pleased, he asked to sleep in them.) He stood on his tiptoes with his feet crossed, and put on my hat. "I'm a pencil," he said. Pointed black shoes as the lead, and fluffy eraser. Very creative!