Happle Birthday!

Eek, it was over 5 months since Mrs C's birthday when her gift was a pair of apple trees, or at least the chance to order 2 to be grown. It must be 3 or 4 months since the order was placed and we finally got round to picking them up today (Tweed Valley Fruit Trees), just before the season ended!

We took the opportunity to have brunch in Peebles, then a fly by the garden centre for some things we needed, so it was about 4pm by the time we got home. People who know us will not be surprised, but we tend to start all day jobs a bit later in the day than others might, but the advice was to plant them in the next few days. It was blue skies and sun so hey, let's make a start.

We'd been preparing one of the locations for some time now, having taken down a massive fir tree then removing the roots, but the other place still had a smaller fir tree (maybe 10 feet) needing taken down and dug out, plus a smaller bush, as can be seen in the extra.

It took about 90 minutes to get the trees down, (and logged!) leaving the stump and roots... I actually didn't think we'd manage it all, never mind today, but relentless digging, scraping and sawing eventually saw the stump come out and another 45 minutes later both trees were in and we were done by 9pm.

We'd already had a fairly busy long weekend, digging, cutting, walking but now we're shattered, I know my arms and shoulders will be sore tomorrow from electric saw shake and digging, I need another weekend to recover! My bets are after our dinner, we'll watch The Night Manager and collapse in a heap...

Anyway, welcome to "Katy" and "Stobo Castle", I hope we look after you and you reward us with some fruit.