We filled trench 6 and covered it. And partial trench #7 is dug! Whew! It feels so good to have gotten this far with Eric's time off . We need to finish filling it and covering this last trench, and then Voila! We are ready to start digging holes! We have 1/5 of the peat we need leftover from last year, so it should be no problem to get started. The rest should be here soon.
I dreaded going out this morning, because it was so grey and foggy. Eric had to almost drag me. But once we got down there, the sky cleared and the sun shone, and the mist came up from the ground and it was beautiful! T got some pics of David working on smoothing one of the rows. I will share.
On another note, Pam from Abba Backhoe and Dozing, Inc. came out and gave us an estimate for clearing the remaining 1/4-1/2 acre of trees and stumps for our final planting in the future. She said the job would require an excavator with thumb for popping out the roots of the stumps. In her opinion, the job would take 2 days. At $135 an hour, that's approximately $1100 a day, and she has a one day minimum, because that is big equipment that has to be moved. She said we could do one day and take it from there, depending on how much we want to spend. I LOVE the way she does business! She has done 2 jobs for us in the past and we have been very satisfied. I've given her rave reviews on her site. Her operators are expert and do such good work that it's like watching a great show. You can't take your eyes off it! We were pleased with the idea of only spending $2200 for a job that will take 2 days instead of 2 years of us doing it with our little tractor (if it even held up under the strain of that kind of work!) and by hand. So much work and time saved. However, truthfully we don't have the money to spare right now. It'll be probably this time next year when we have them do the work, providing we save for it!
I also heard back from a nursery I contacted about field grown Arborvitae. Theirs were $49 each, way beyond my budget. But they did give me some good advice. They said that planting them in a berm would not be a good idea, as it would not give them the stability they need, as they are not terribly deep rooted. It would also dry out faster. They recommended we just get those stumps OUT. Ugh, because that would require a stump grinder, as the fence would be in the way of the excavator getting them... But on closer inspection, we realized that there aren't really very many stumps in the direct line of planting. Maybe two, and they could be worked around seeing that we will be planting them 3 feet apart :) So that's good.
We also decided we probably won't get the big stump grinder guys out here...Pam said they're very expensive. She recommended putting the stumps in a pile at the back of the property in the corner closest to the Jacobsons. She also said she has some cheap sources for wood chips for us, which may be good.
Feeling optimistic!
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