El Stupido!

I am not the brightest crayon in the box at the moment.

Will is gone, he went to Arkansas for another Army thing this week. So I thought, huh while he is gone, I should replace the dead tree in our front yard with a new Chilean Mesquite, which we KNOW we can keep alive (by proof of the lovely one growing in our backyard. It is the tree directly behind Rhayn in the picture. This picture was taken a month ago and it has gained a few inches as well as canopy since then. It is also bigger than the four elms we planted almost two years previous.) I wanted it to be a little bit of a surprise, too. You know, for fun.

The dead tree was a Flowering Purple Plum, which we had planted sometime in March. They are so beautiful and I see them all of the time in yards. I think though my problem is the drought. I know that we should conserve water, and thus have a hard time watering a plant every other day! It never did anything besides lose its leaves and die. Home Depot has a one year plant guarantee, so I took the dead thing back (but being past ninety days we only get store credit. I can totally use that so it works.) The old tree cost $150 while my new mesquite only cost $45. Sweet deal? I think so! Mesquite grow really fast and since it is only a fifteen gallon that was supposedly why the big price difference. Although I think it is about the same size as the plum.

We are at day 29 of the most consecutive days above 110 in history. What was I thinking? Seriously? Out in the heat, digging a HOLE? What is wrong with me!? I did it, and I even staked the darn thing really well. It all seemed such a good idea while sitting in my house in the air conditioning, but then I got out there, and nearly passed out. Ugh. I had a lot of other plans for this week and they have all pretty much zoomed out the freakin' window.

So, although I wasn't that smart in my planning, I did it, it is done. The tree is in the ground, watered, and still looks alive. Hopefully it will cool off soon and we can get on top of our two big projects for this year- our back yard and organizing our garage.


***Have you ever been listening to the radio and the weather announcer says something like "its partly cloudy" and you look out to see these clouds only to notice that the sky is 100% cloud free? Oh, wait. There is one, lone cloud near the western horizon. Does that count as partly cloudy? Huh. Just wondering. You really worry that these poor radio personalities never see the outside. Rather like office workers in their maze of cubicles. I am so glad I have never had one of those jobs.