Family Trees

Today I am going to deviat from the usual knitting content to share the activities of last Saturday afternoon. John and I travelled to Ann Arbor to do two things: celebrate Father's Day with my dad and plant a tree.

Some day I will finish my "100 things about me list". One of the 100 things will be this little tidbit: John and I share the same wedding anniversary as my parents. It wasn't really planned that way. Back when we were planning our wedding we found a hall that we absolutely had to have. They had two Saturdays open for the whole year when we got there: Saturday August 22nd and Saturday October 31st. We didn't really want a Halloween wedding. It seems cool at first, but orange and black really weren't my first choice of colors. But August 22nd was my parents wedding anniversary. And it didn't seem right to take their day.

But as it turned out, Mom and Dad didn't have any problems sharing their day. John and I were married on their 34th wedding anniversary. And dad likes it because he never forgets the date. We've had several fun anniversary celebrations together, but this year, since it's their 40th anniversary, and they are taking a special trip to Hawaii, we decided to celebrate a little early and share in the purchase of an "anniversary tree".

John and I love trees, but our postage stamp sized yard is more or less dominated by the little Japanese maple that we bought. My parents, on the other hand, have 10 fabulous acres. Plenty of room for trees. Since we were going to plant on Father's Day, I invited my brother to get in on our little project. He and his wife were married a year ago at the end of May. So whatever tree we picked would represent 47 years of marriage. How cool is that?

What did we pick? Well, she won't show her stripes in an obvious way until next spring, but the newest denizen of my parent's domain is a Saucer Magnolia:

Pink Saucer Magnolia Waiting for Her Forever Home

All the rain that we've had here in the midwest this spring has made my parents backyard so lush it's almost hard to tell there's a tree there. But "Maggie" is an 8 foot tall and very lovely speciment of her species. Once we got her unloaded, it was time to break ground. Dad got out one of his favorite new toys: the backhoe attachment for his John Deere tractor:

Breaking Ground

Of course, it's really not possible for an engineer, no matter how much of a computer guy he is, to resist heavy machinery and digging holes. So after a quick lesson on the controls, John got involved in the digging too.

John Prepares for a New Career in Construction

After they got the hole dug and got some nice new top soil to line the bottom of the hole, it was time to move Maggie to her new home. I bet you never knew how versitile a piece of equipment a tractor was!

Maggie's Big Move

After a quick trip across the back yard, John and Dad and Ufer (the dog) got the tree all settled in.

Maggie Settles In

Apparently one very loud any happy pheasant has decided that this tree was planted for him and is now coming out to crow underneath it. Seems like Mother Nature is happy with our planting adventure.

Just in case you were wondering what I was doing while all this hole digging and tree moving was going on, I was getting started on this:

Confetti Tank

Yep, you knew if you waited long enough I would post some actual knitting content. Here's the bottom of the back of the microfiber ribbon tank, which I have taken to calling the "Confetti Tank" after the name of the colorway of the ribbon.

Tank Top Stitch Pattern Detail

The colors are pooling a bit -- that red definitely likes to be with the blue -- but there's enough drift that I don't think it's going to be too bad. The picture shows the one repeat that I got in between the tree and dinner.

Why, you might ask, is that all I have to show since I had all of Sunday and a car-ride home? Well, another project managed to slip into my fingers and I just couldn't put it down. But I'll be back to this project soon. I think it will be perfect for the trip to San Antonio we have planned over the 4th of July weekend. I think the colors will go just smashingly with the fireworks!