Hole math

Auger hole = air + rocks

Planting hole = soil + compost - rocks

rock wall = (planting hole-soil -compost) * (151 shrub holes + 87 tree holes)

I put another hen to rest tonight. This one was a barred rock who couldn't hop into the coop any longer. RIP and thanks for the fun.  We are still getting 9 eggs most days, so I don't think either of the sickies were laying.

Mole Holes?

The grass that RayP sprayed looks like it's dying nicely.

The auger and skid steer were fixed and ready to drill our planting holes, so James showed up around 0930.  First, he drilled the 12 inch diameter, 3 ft deep hole that will be used for our Titan Telescoping Flagpole, one of my Christmas presents.  Then he switched to the 9 inch diameter auger and used that to drill the tree holes 2 ft deep, and then the shrub holes 1 ft deep.  James worked straight through to 1630, but he got all the holes finished:  87 tree holes and 152 shrub holes. During the augering I went to the compost facility to get 2 pickup truckloads of compost.  I shoveled the compost around and into all of the tree holes to prepare them for planting.

Shawn Reigh  335 High Street Ext, Unionville, PA 19375  (814 280-1159)  Reigh Services Inc. Skid steer worker was James.

Black Walnut field

We now have a field of almost 100 black walnuts from Penn Nursery. We rented a 2 man auger and dug 50-60 holes yesterday. The Admiral and friends (Gracie and Carol) visited and helped but it's very hard work; it's kind of like lifting a lawn mower from chest high to shoulder high and walking with it to the next hole spot 6'-8' away. Yesterday we were able to do 20 fast, then had to slow down to 3-5 and rest. Today in the cooler temps we drilled 30 more holes and planted 80 trees in just 3 hours using 2 RTV load of dirt and compost mixed. It started raining at 11:30 AM so we quit that project for the day.
Next time we rent, make a memo: look for an auger we can pull behind the RTV or tractor.