Easter Monday - early in the morning and Husband is eager for the day to start. The sun shines, as we breakfast, and a couple of thrashers flutter around the outside of the deck, issuing invitations to come and see.......

I put on the laundry, and then follow him outside (Husband, - not the Thrasher...). I find him looking seriously at the cottonwood that sprang up in the middle of the perennial garden, overnight growing to about three feet so that it was impossible to get in amongst the jungle flowers to move it last Fall.

Now, however, I have moved all the tulip bulbs within a radius of two feet of the tree, and carefully replanted them. Husband has used the pick-axe and the shovel to make a little moat above the roots. On Easter Saturday we dug the new hole for the cottonwood, over by the fence where it would grow big and tall and cast welcome shade into the back yard. This sounds like such a casual action, - airily - we 'dug a new hole' to accommodate this errant tree, - believe me, it is a casual occurrence when you are 23, or 43, or even 63. It's a major operation when you are 83 - albeit a pleasant one if the company is beloved and you can be leisurely about the way you do it. No flinging dirt back over your shoulder, in wild abandon, as the hole grows deeper and deeper...

The fence is located along the back pasture, where once a glacier dumped mega tons of rock as it retreated northwards. They call it Similkameen chip loam now, but where we were digging it was mostly chips and large stones, - I couldn't believe that the treasured loam we piled so carefully to one side had ever had room to squeeze itself in amongst the rocks.

Husband pried and shoveled, and I got down on my knees and brought the rocks to the surface, - at the end of the morning we had a lovely hole. When we told Son #3 about this venture he had the temerity to ask which one of us we were digging the hole for, so great is our antiquity....

In response to his saucy question we went and 'borrowed' some fine, rich black soil from his compost heap and on Easter Monday we were all set to complete the operation.

It required a great deal of pick and shovel work to loosen the roots of the Cottonwood, - a great deal of instruction as to 'lean on it this way, Honey (through gritted teeth) or pull on it as hard as you can that way'. I was amazed at Husband's persistence and calmness - we worked in air that was only very faintly blue. Because he suffers from post polio syndrome his balance is very precarious, and he has developed a fine patience (not always evident) in times of physical stress.

The cottonwood fit beautifully into the hole, - we lavished it with son's fine soil, watered it well, and came in for lunch, proud of the morning's work and with a great deal of satisfaction and thankfulness that we are able to accomplish this task of moving and planting a tree. It has been such a big part of our lives, - planting trees.

I was able to move two little Spirea bushes into the hole left by the Cottonwood, - tiny ones that I thought would be great fountain heads of Bridal Wreath and so planted them at the back of the bed, along the fence. They turned out to be delicate little shrubs, barely a foot high, lost in the sunflower jungle into which last year's garden evolved. Now they are preparing to bloom front and centre stage, and their thank you was quite audible......