My appaloosa horse Teyla and I stopped mid-ride yesterday to watch my husband Dennis, his dad, and C. digging the hole for our weeping willow tree.

It takes a lot of work and a lot of water to get trees started and thriving in the high desert, and it may be an act of madness to try a weeping willow here. Although I've seen some large and mature ones around that appear to have made it with almost no attention at all. We tend to the trees we plant and fret about them almost like they are children. (We are ever vigilant for the yellow-bellied sapsuckers that like to tap their deadly drinking holes in rings around the cottonwood's and cherry's slender trunks.) And the trees return it back to us a hundredfold. Yesterday, I sat in the shade of Abuela's leaves, which have simply popped. When her new green leaves rustle in the breeze, she reminds me of my happy chickens in the evenings when they are snuggled down in deep straw, contentedly roosting in their hen house, eyes half-closed, emitting long-drawn out cluck cluck clucks from somewhere deep down inside of their feathered breasts ...

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaak.
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak.
Bwaaaaaaaaaak.

I sure could use Farmgirl's wet weather creek.