Even the Best Laid Plans

I have been dying to get something planted where we have a big dirt patch over and around the new septic.  Saturday was the day -- we had 8 hydrangeas (Pinky Winky - wasn't that one of the Teletubbies?) -- and it's supposed to rain for the next several days -- so we got an early start to get them in before the rain. 

The idea being they'll make a nice line at the edge of the property before the land falls off to the neighbor's land.  We have a bag of wildflower seed to cover the rest of the dirt while we figure out what to put there in the future...garden would be great (although we're signed up for the CSA for this summer, so there's no rush), I personally would love a patch of raspberry bushes (although I checked them out and you could buy a lot of raspberries before those bushes pay for themselves!) and Jonathan found this cool espaliered apple tree with six different grafts.  Anyway, I digress. 



We even brought our helpers, who were great at pulling out rocks, mixing dirt, moving plants and just about everything else we asked of them. 

This is where the plans and reality started to diverge.  All the holes were dug and 5 were planted, just as I was starting on the 6th there was a horrible sound from nearby the house.  It had started to drizzle and Jonathan was replacing a tarp that had blown off some lumber when he stepped on a nail in a board. It was a big one, and he was pale. 

Kids helped me plant the remaining plants in record time, and we zipped right over to the hospital, where he got x-rays, some high powered pain relief, and a tetanus shot.   Plans to finish the ceiling in the apartment during the rest of what was now a full-out rainy day were placed on hold.  Needless to say we don't have the 'after' pictures, but will be interesting to see if the specimens that were speed-planted suffer compared to those that were more carefully placed in the ground.

Then, towards the end of the day when I got a ride back to the house to get my car (Thank you Jamie and Melanie!), a quick tour of the house showed the tarp wasn't holding up as well as might have been hoped.

This was the view from the entry - the protective paper over the floor seems to have gotten the worst of it.

And the future mudroom floor had a significant amount of water on it. 

However, the good news is that Sunday morning (Happy Easter!) with the paper up and the sun out, the floor seems to have survived unscathed.  It was dry and looked fine.