Phew!

I admit it. I was starting to get worried about the trees.

We planted more than 70 trees by the time it was all said and done and only the cherry trees were showing signs of life.

The rest looked like dead branches sticking up out of the ground.

Nothing from the persimmons.

No green buds from the apples.

Nada from the Paw Paws.

I wondered…did we do something wrong?

Did we dig the holes too deep?

Did we not spread the roots out enough?

I thought of that long Saturday when we planted so many trees and had so much hope for success.

I thought of all that research that went into the methods for planting each variety of tree.

I thought of the fun we had digging the holes, planting the trees and watering them in. The excitement of imagining what our pasture would look like in 2 years, 5 years, 30 years…the same excitement we felt when we put the swales in.

I thought about all these things…and I let the anxiety and worry go.

I realized that, while we put a lot of work into this project, we also learned quite a bit. None of that time and effort was wasted.

I remembered that we willingly took a risk in planting these trees, knowing that they may not, probably would not, all make it.

And suddenly, even though I still felt sad and disappointed, I realized that we did get something out of the experience…we got the experience.

And today, while the boys played, I took a walk around and found that the cherry trees weren’t the only survivors. Almost all the other varieties had started to leaf.

I just had to let the worry and anxiety go to see them.