Mud

We've been spending almost all of the last seven days digging. The hillside, we discovered, is far wetter than expected, and needs serious drainage in order to be sure that our fruit trees will thrive. With some interruptions (a visit to my parents' on Monday; snow on Wednesday; things like that), we've been working on digging the necessary drainage trenches, and the planting pits for the trees.

Needless to say, this has been non-trivial. We're almost there, now, and just have another half-dozen pits (and whatever trenches are required for them!) to go.

It's been a muddy, hard, squelching job, and I shall be very glad when it's done. At the moment, the hillside doesn't look like much, with bamboo canes marking the future position of trees, and then only muddy ditches, wet spoil heaps, and muddy tracks where the grass has broken down under foot.