Celebrating My Trees

I've been back here on the family farm for almost 6 years now, my actual arrival anniversary is later this month. Five years ago, I began to plant things around the house and other areas, including some new trees. Since I was just moving from Iowa, where both evergreen and deciduous trees are commonly planted as windbreaks, and since we've got pretty wide open crop fields on the west and north side of the house, I decided this might be a good idea here.

I thought a windbreak along the fence line just north of the house made sense. I realize I get northwest winds, and pretty strong ones at that, during the colder times of the year, but there's just no way to plant trees that intersect that trajectory....so I figured at least 10 evergreens, well spaced out along this east to west fence line, might help break the winds around the home here.

I was pretty tight for cash, so I shopped at a Walmart nursery that I'd found in the next town over. Colorado Blue Spruce seedlings, maybe 1 foot tall, were for sale for under $10 each, and I ended up with 10 of them. They took some serious nursing the first few years....you know the drill: regular watering, weeding, heavy mulching, all aimed at helping survival. I'm so happy to see how healthy and big they are getting, although not particularly effective as windbreaks yet. I chose this one to photograph because it's directly in front of a 4' fence post, for size visualization.

Meanwhile, my peach and salmon colored oriental poppies and more clematis varieties and peonies are now open. I would have gone for some shooting this morning, but it's been a very windy, and very sunny day here...so maybe when things settle down this evening, I can "preserve" that special image collection!