Our Orchard

When we moved into our new house, one of the first things I wanted to do was plant citrus and fruit trees in our pasture. We moved in August so timing for weather being kind to our fruit trees wasn't ideal. In January, Jake suggested we go to the citrus nursery so we can at least identify what kind of trees we wanted. We went on a Monday, and the lady at the nursery assured us that it was the "PERFECT" time to plant trees. . .Owen, Jake's younger brother was coming for the weekend, and we needed help with planing. . .so, we ended up with sixteen trees. It was a project to get all of the tree holes dug, this was right after the flood, and the new dishwasher and such. . .but we got it done.

 

The following week we had an unprecedented freeze. A really unprecedented freeze. We covered our trees as best we could, but it was windy, really windy on Tuesday night and all day Wednesday. On Thursday morning, we were scheduled to get irrigation water at 4:30 in the morning. Jake is good about irrigation and early mornings (he doesn't like to get up early) but 4:00 he got up to a frosty calm morning. . .Some of or sheets were not covered, and the hose was frozen, but somehow we had water when we weren't supposed to, Jake had to go "hunting for our water" but we had water in the front part of our pasture -- I got up to go to the gym at 4:30 and was confused. I called Jake who was trying to keep pool pipes from freezing and some pipes that aren't well insulated from freezing.

 

We were able to weather a realitively bad freeze with super young trees, hopefully all making it (think water coming at the coldest times of the night) and an early morning irrigation turn that alerted Jake to getting things going. . .Some of our friends and neighbors weren't quite as blessed, fortunately, for them it wasn't terrible, pipes froze, but didn't break and a tree or two died. . .but we are so very grateful for the tender mercy of the missed water turn by someone in the neighborhood and the new water when we needed it. I am still hopeful that our young grapefruit tree will make it, but the others look like they will be fine!