It all started with a pick and a Toyota
Brother-in-laws Bruce and Jeff were looking for something to do while the wives visited with their new sister in the house. There was a big rock sticking up that I had to mow around. I told them it was something I would like to try to move someday, to make it easier to mow the front lawn. So we started by poking around the rock in the front yard with a pick and a long steel bar. After a little poking, and some digging with a shovel, we noticed that we could move it slightly. So we dug down farther and were able to get a chain around one end. Bruce hooked up his new Toyota four wheel drive truck to the chain, and gave it a little pull. First thing that happened was that one of the links in the chain broke. It was of course the weak link. We fixed that and tried again. This time with a good sized jerk, the rock came flying out.
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Then we had this huge hole in the lawn, one that could swallow up a couple of deer, and a huge rock sitting in the front yard. We made a quick decision to drag the rock over near the rock on the right side of the driveway and make a bigger driveway entry rock.
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That worked well, except for the trough we made in the gravel driveway. The two rocks were together easily and looked like they belonged there. But then we still had a big hole.
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A couple days later, we were in Sturgis and stopped by Rockingtree Floral and Garden Center on Lazelle Street just at closing time. A very helpful lady greeted us and showed us several trees, then helped us pick one for our front yard. She said it would fit into our Subaru wagon easily. It did fit although the top was touching the front windshield and the bottom was touching the tailgate. We got it home and put it in the corner of the breeze way for safekeeping until it was a nice day for planting.
Since deer spend a lot of time in our front yard in the dark time of the day, and the young tree would probably be nice and chewy in the winter time, we decided we needed a fence around the new tree. So we got busy and designed a fence that would keep the deer out, and that would be pleasing to look at, and easy to access for mowing and for watering.
I used some 4 x 4 posts from a previous auction in Black Hawk, purchased some fencing, and located some gate hardware. We treated the posts with Thompson water seal, then dug the holes for the posts. After packing dirt around each post, I put a level on one post and stretched a line to the other posts and marked them for cutting. I cut them with a circular saw, so they were all the same height. Then to put a fine woodworking touch to the project, I chambered the top of each post with a portable router. Then I built a gate and installed it. Finally, I added the fence wire to the project. Then the area was ready for the new tree.
I used some 4 x 4 posts from a previous auction in Black Hawk, purchased some fencing, and located some gate hardware. We treated the posts with Thompson water seal, then dug the holes for the posts. After packing dirt around each post, I put a level on one post and stretched a line to the other posts and marked them for cutting. I cut them with a circular saw, so they were all the same height. Then to put a fine woodworking touch to the project, I chambered the top of each post with a portable router. Then I built a gate and installed it. Finally, I added the fence wire to the project. Then the area was ready for the new tree.
The tree's roots were in a 7 gallon bucket. Seven gallons didn't even come close to filling that big hole. The lady told us to plant it so that the top of the bucket was flush with the ground. So we had to add three wheel barrows full of dirt from the back yard and mixed it with three large bags of potting soil.
We planted the tree in the middle, and then filled around it. Then we covered it with redwood bark to protect it in the wintertime. So now, two months after the pick and the Toyota pickup... we have a new flowering crab-apple tree to enjoy ( and to mow around.)
the beginning
