Another Tree at the Ranch

My birthday is next week and I've been asking Carl a million questions about my birthday gifts. He never gives any hints (boo) but he did tell me that he has one gift that he needs to give me early. I love getting presents early. He said he would give it to me over the weekend but he went hunting on Saturday and didn't get home until late so I didn't receive this mystery gift, then on Sunday he went hunting again and didn't come until late that night too. So when he got home around 10pm on Sunday, I was asking him about my birthday gift that I hadn't got yet but that he was going to give me soon. By now it was around 11pm and we were getting ready for bed, he was still being vague about the birthday gift when I was continuing to ask a bunch of questions, it's bigger than a bread box, doesn't have a motor, can't be wrapped easily, etc. Then he says, you want your birthday gift now, and of course I say yes. He says, ok put your shoes on because its not here. What does he mean its not here, as in it is not on our property but is accessible at 11pm at night...yes.  By now, I'm thinking 'Really Carl, we have to drive to it (remember we don't know anyone in our town that could be hiding the gift either) at 11pm on a Sunday night. So we get our shoes, coats and a flashlight and hop in the truck. We drive down our rode and stop near a woods. Carl gets out of the truck with the flashlight and begins walking towards the woods and asks if I want to come too. I, of course say No, I'm not going in there, it's not even our woods. So on he goes in to someone elses woods to apparently get my birthday gift. A few minutes later he comes out of the woods with a big willow tree. I've been wanting a willow tree for quite awhile and really wanted to plant it the year the house was built so I was really happy to get the tree. But really who stashes a willow tree in someone elses woods for three days...Carl.

So we planted the willow tree in the back corner of the property in a low spot since willow trees need alot of water.

Here I am with my new willow tree. I've got a shovel in my hand but who am I kidding, everyone knows Carl did all the work and I watched, hahaha.



Then Carl staked it up so the strong winds on the Ranch won't blow it over. Thanks for the tree, hubby!



Planting Trees on the Ranch

We planted our first trees on the Ranch a few weeks ago. A lady at work planted the seeds from her Cleveland pear trees and brought in a bunch of little saplings. The Cleveland pear tree is similar to a Bradford pear, it doesn't produce fruit and is a nice medium height tree. You typically see them in rows lining drive ways. Anyways, we planted ours along the left side of the property (as you are looking at it from the road.)

When you are working with an engineer, every thing has to be measured. These trees are evenly spaced from each other and in a perfect row parallel to the property line.

Then he dug the holes to plant the little trees.

Then, in went the trees and in a perfect row.

We were glad to plant some trees in the year the house was built. Someday that little fact will be interesting.



Hello Again

Wow, I fell off the blogging trail. Now, I'm back to fill you in on our October happenings. Here are a few highlights.

At the beginning of October I went to Indianapolis for a business convention. Since it wasn't too far of a drive Carl visited me over the weekend and we went to Fogo de Chao. It's one of our favorite restaurants! It's all you can eat meat and it is the best meat you'll ever have. They give you a card that is green on one side and red on the other, when you flip the card to green the gauchos will start bringing you meat and they won't stop until you turn your card to red. After awhile you do have to turn the card to red and breathe a little (and unbutton your pants, haha). Here is Carl with one of the gauchos and a huge piece of steak.

My little sister just finished up the volleyball season and we went to several of her games. Suzanne is pretty much a rock star at volleyball, just like me, haha. Basketball season just started so we're looking forward to those games.



Then we went down to Carl's Alma mater, Purdue, to watch them get creamed by Notre Dame. No further elaboration needed.

With the heat wave that came through the middle of October, one of my pumpkins bit the dust and I had to haul him over to the compost pile. The rest of the pumpkins still look great though!



And the garden was still going strong in October. It was turning out tomatoes and peppers like you wouldn't believe. We've canned so many tomatoes lately, I'm not sure how we are going to eat them all. Just this week Carl canned up 7 quarts of stewed tomatoes and 7 quarts of pasta sauce in addition all the other things we canned earlier this summer.

October is also the start of deer season so Carl has been over at his parents hunting on the weekends quite a bit and I'm participating in a few craft shows the next two weeks so I've been spending a lot of time in the craft room.  I'll be back later with some more of our October adventures.