Yesterday, hubby and I went out to the property. For a couple weeks now, we've had problems with a herd of cows breaking our newly placed irrigation system. Last week when he went up to fix another break, he built a little cage around the two valves the cows kept breaking. That has worked wonders and the cows have moved on but one valve was still leaking and the lines needed to be checked for placement. Oh man, it was so windy yesterday. I bet we had gusts in the afternoon of 25-30mph. I had to finally take refuge in the car to keep my contacts from grinding the dust in my eyes.
Back to the task at hand... while Richard fixed the pipes, I walked the lines. The first two were pretty good but the third was all out of place and needed a lot of fixing. Obviously it had been tripped over by many cows. The rest of the lines needed about 25% of the placements fixed. The bushes and trees are all doing fairly well. I'd say we maybe only lost one plant to the cows tromping although several had been squished. It looks like all of the tree lines are doing well. The Service berry lines have quite varied responses to their environment. Some are doing well and some look quite dead and then there is every variation in-between. We may need to replace up to 20% of those. Here's a look at how they're all doing.
This is a service berry. Those who helped plant may remember a couple little tiny things that we planted to just give it a chance. Yah, this is one of those.
This is one of the nice healthy Service berry plants that already has its flowers.
This one didn't turn out too clear... dang wind! But it shows how animals eat the tips off.
Dad found a good use for the cactus... holding the line in place!
Cow-patties do a good job of that too.
Here is the Elderberry leafing out. All of them looked pretty good. There were a couple that looked all dried up and hopeless but then I saw one that had a bud leafing out below the dried up part.
This a such a cute flower on this cactus that Richard was protecting. Almost looks like daisies. There are lots of things beginning to flower on the property. In a couple weeks, it will look so beautiful with all of its different flowers. You'll have to come out and look close though cuz it's all smaller than the sage.
It's an 
Airstream and among some groups, that is really prestigious. To us, it's just a nice trailer that won't get dang mice in it and we can get out of the wind and sun to have a sandwich while up at our property. It definitely needs some cushion fabric updating and a good wipe-down but that's about it.
rented a tractor and went to the property to scrape a fence line/firebreak. The job was not without it's trials and only got half
done.
tire. Yep, it shimmied and shook and the tire came off the rim. Can't do anything with a gimpy tractor. Richard had to stay the night knowing nothing more would get accomplished and pondering how to get the tractor back on it's trailer without damaging things further. Once morning came he got that accomplished and drove back to town, got the tire fixed and didn't even get charged for anything, including the use of the tractor! He'll try again later in the summer. For now, everything is going well with the plants. they are growing and a few even had berries which were quickly munched by the local birds and rabbits.
This is a service berry. Those who helped plant may remember a couple little tiny things that we planted to just give it a chance. Yah, this is one of those.
This is one of the nice healthy Service berry plants that already has its flowers.
This one didn't turn out too clear... dang wind! But it shows how animals eat the tips off.
Dad found a good use for the cactus... holding the line in place!
Cow-patties do a good job of that too.
Here is the Elderberry leafing out. All of them looked pretty good. There were a couple that looked all dried up and hopeless but then I saw one that had a bud leafing out below the dried up part.
This a such a cute flower on this cactus that Richard was protecting. Almost looks like daisies. There are lots of things beginning to flower on the property. In a couple weeks, it will look so beautiful with all of its different flowers. You'll have to come out and look close though cuz it's all smaller than the sage.
We also went to the library. They loved it and all came back with books galore (which their mother returned on their way out of town to San Diego... thanks Hillary!) promising to have them all read but then begged to keep them a while longer when it was time to go. I knew they would want to do that.
This last weekend the family spent a good deal of time at our property. We went thinking we'd spend two days planting trees and bushes. That didn't happen. There was the mondo watering system to build first. That took more than the two days but on day three, there was enough done to start planting. This tree is a Nanking Cherry and was the first tree planted on the property next to that cute little emitter on the hose. Richard worked all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get the watering system completed to where it actually waters. There have been many bumps along the way. There are 8 - 500' lengths of hose to plant along. We have 400 trees/bushes so they are planted about every 10' and we have two lines planted so that's about 100 plants with 300 to go. 
