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Friday I drove down to West Texas Nursery near Idalou east northeast of Lubbock to pick up the seedlings I ordered last November, I think it was. Maybe earlier. I could have had them shipped and would have saved money if I had but I like to get out sometimes, see the country-side, bleak though it may be, so I opted for the pickup. Planting seedlings during a drought might not seem like the smartest thing to do but it will take a decade to have much to show for planting them, if they survive, so one doesn’t want to wait. This is the first time I’ve been able to find piñon seedlings so I decided to go for it. I also ordered four-wing salt bush seedlings just because. Both came in units of 25, so I was faced with planting 50 seedlings, which seemed like a better idea when I ordered them last fall than it did when I got home with them Friday. As she has done many times before, my good wife saved me from myself, though, by rallying the troops to help me. Between her, Jill, Kari, Chris and I, we got 48 of the 50 planted Friday afternoon where I had figured I’d have to plant them over several days by myself. I am extremely grateful. Using a rolling hose reel with 200 feet of hose on it, I can water the seedlings, which are planted along the southwest perimeter, in 20 minutes or so. They’ll need to be watered several times a week until they get established, but both are natives of this part of the world and should stand up OK to the dry, cold, wind, heat, etc. of the Texas Panhandle. We shall see. Continue reading “Hope vs. experience”
