Magnolia Park

Last weekend we went to Lowe's and by chance saw a faded flyer announcing an Adopt-a-Tree program from the county. Who knew?! Once a month, at one of the county parks they bring trees such as Live Oaks, Bald Cypress, Maples, Magnolias, and Crape Myrtles. Each household can pick up up to two trees at no cost for any Orange County resident.

So we showed up at 8:00 this morning as soon as the gates were opening. There was a huge line! The cars continued through the park and we followed in the car. Quite odd, but it was just like a drive through. We showed our i.d., received a care guide and were told to go ahead and pick out two that we wanted and load them up. The county actually made something free and easy. I was amazed!

Sam and I picked up two: A Southern Magnolia for me, and a Red Maple for him. Hopefully we'll get them in the ground this afternoon!

Since we drove almost an hour away to get to the park, we decided that we needed to enjoy the park as well. As we parked the car, a peacock started calling from a nearby fence. This park has several peacocks. We saw about 4 males and 2 guinea hens. They were just beautiful to watch!

There was a small herb garden that sat vacant. Then we wandered through the woods. The park has a campground, but i don't think they have the campground open right now because of fire risk. Little trails criss-crossed the wooded areas of the park. We saw crab spiders, millipedes, and a few snakes slithered off the trail ahead of us.

As we came out of the trails, we used the GPS and quickly located a Geocache in the park. It was about 5 feet off the ground in a tree. Quick easy find!

And to top it off, I just made my first video slideshow :-) Hope you enjoy!

Dodging Raindrops

This entire weekend it felt like Sam and I were dodging raindrops. No matter what the project was, it kept seeming to be interrupted by the rain. Yesterday we were able to accomplish one feat: The Maple Tree Project.

We were working on our fence in the backyard. This required us to remove the panels and reset the posts. While doing so, we had a somewhat large Maple Tree interfering with the panel. Instead of just cutting it down, we decided to dig it up and at least try to give it a good home.

Luckily for us, Florida is a big sandpit and the Maple was right in the middle of the sandpit. We somewhat successfully dug it up and moved it to the front yard. The move to the front yard was the rough part.

When we dug the hole in the front yard for the Maple, someone (previous owners - not us...) decided that it was a good idea to use gravel and clay to level off the area. After a lot of back-breaking work using shovels and the claw side of the hammer, we were able to excavate a nice size hole.

In went the Maple along with several wheelbarrows full of compost dirt until we ran right out. At least covering all the roots, we felt that topsoil to help fill in the hole would be ok to stabilize our newly planted tree.

Just as we put down our shovel, the rain came pouring in! At last! A project done before the rain beat us! And just the right timing for the tree.

Ohhh... yeah.... I forgot to mention the size of the tree.... About 15-20 feet! Fingers crossed that it does well.

Happy Earth Day!