Tired puppy in Paradise...

Tired puppy in Paradise...  Not the dogs – me!  I've finished planting all those trees, but now I've got some seriously tired arms :)  I did most of the really hard work in the cool morning hours, which helped – but I've been going at it hard since 7:30 this morning, with just a couple of breaks.  I'm not used to doing this much hard work with my upper body, and I'm really feeling it.

On the other hand: trees!  Bushes!  We now have a small grove of five 15' to 20' tall paper birches (3" trunks), three well-positioned weeping willows, 10' high and the same across, and a rough group of six purple lilac.  The lilacs are small – 2 gallon pots, 30" tall plants, but they look very vigorous and healthy, and root-bound in the pots.  Two of the willows are on either side of our driveway as you pull in off the highway; once they have a few years of growth they'll make a fine entrance.  The third is in a gap in the row of trees alongside the irrigation canal, where a black willow was felled by lightning some years ago.  All three willows are within 10' of the irrigation canal (which is unlined; water seeps through its sides), so they should be very happy about the water situation.

In a related development, I asked the folks at Zollinger's for a reference to a quality sprinkler installer, and they came through.  I contacted that fellow today, and he'll be out here next week to scope out the job.  I'm thinking of a three-phased approach: one for all our lawn and landscaped area south of our driveway, two for the shed, and three for the lawn and landscaping around our house, once we've finished our planned construction and have it landscaped.  I currently irrigate with a combination of 3" diameter aluminum “hand line” and hoses with sprinklers.  I'm looking ahead a bit, to the day when that is an intimidating amount of work because of my age.  I'm probably good for another 5 to 10 years, but I want to get that taken care of before I can't do it any more :)