Day 7

Mike finished planting the trees in the orchard.  The ground is full of rocks so it was pretty slow going.  When the hole was dug, Mike would put in some planting soil and Heather would drop in a handful of sheep pellets, which are great fertilizer and do not burn the roots.  I doubt you could find them for sale in the US but obviously, they are plentiful here.  After the hole was filled in Heather would pour something at the base of the tree from what looked like a plastic milk container.  I asked her what it was and her response was, "worm pee."  Of course I didn't believe her but she insisted that in fact that was what it was!  It seems that Mike's mother has a worm farm in her back yard.  It consists of a box with a screen on the bottom, filled with dirt and full of worms.  The worms eat and drink and do worm things, then poop and pee.  The pee filters down through the dirt and the screen at the bottom of the box and collects in a tray under the box.  This is worm pee and it is supposed to be the best fertilizer you can get : )  I kid you not!  And I hope it is because as you can see in the picture below, the trees in the orchard need all the help they can get.  They are very very young trees and some of them just look like sticks.

So after the planting was done, we went across the street the the pasture with the sheep in it.  There are 9 sheep there and they are really pets to the landowners down the road.  One of the sheep had given birth to two little lambs and it looks like two other sheep are ready to deliver any day now!  

Here is the new mother with her babies.

Here is one of the sheep that can hardly walk because she is so big with lambs.

Here is the expectant mother letting Heather pet her.  Most sheep just run to the other side of the pasture if you approach, but since these are pets, they will come to the fence and let you pet them.


That's all for today.  Tomorrow is another day of patching and sanding.