My weekend

I keep telling myself I'm making progress on my list of things to do, but it keeps growing so that I feel I'm constantly falling behind.

I worked in the yard this weekend. A lot. The unseasonably warm weather we've been having has tricked a lot of plants into thinking it is spring, and some of the trees I have are showing the first swell of budding out. Which isn't great with a big cold front coming in this week. It also isn't great if I want to trad bud wood for grafting. So, I got to work. I received a shipment of persimmon trees from Stark Brothers and planted them Saturday--a Prok American persimmon, plus Asian varieties Ichi-Ki-Kei-Jiro and Saijo. I also planted a Perdue pear and two Blanco crabapples. I painted the trunks of all my young trees with a water-diluted white latex paint to protect them from potential sun scald, pruned branches from those that needed it and did some grafting amongst the pear trees to hopefully ensure a diverse array of high quality fruit production. Once all the pruned wood was collected and trimmed for size, I ended up with the following for next month's scion exchange:

• Warren pear
• Ayers pear
• Moonglow pear
• Orient pear
• Fan-Stil pear (expired patent)
• Blanco crabapple
• Santa Rosa plum
• Elephant Heart plum
• Le Feliciana peach

I also went to Famick's in San Antonio hoping to find a pomegranate or fig to plant, but I wasn't blown away by their selection or prices this time. Instead, I picked up two low-chill peach trees--a Galaxy and Red Baron--I plan to put in the ground once this sloppy, wet cold snap passes. They came pre-pruned from the nursery with a handful of neatly trimmed side branches, so I took the opportunity to graft on a few La Feliciana scions I'd collected from the old house last week (I have to say, it is nice to have the people who bought your old house allow you to come back by and get cuttings!).

So, at this point I still have to get in the ground one Pindo palm tree, two pineapple guavas (Feijoa), two mandarins (satsumas), two peach trees, one Texas persimmon and a fig that's outgrown the large pot I've kept it in the past two years. And I still haven't gotten the avocados, paw paws, loquat and jujube trees I've planned for.

Oh, and when I wasn't in the yard, I was in the studio taping drywall. Last night I was in there until 11 p.m. because all the tape I put down started showing air bubbles, forcing me to peel it off and start again. Plus, there was one corner of a drywall panel that kept pushing out and would not go smooth. Arrgh. And I still have the ceiling to go. Joy.

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