The Birthday Orchard

This weekend we celebrated my 30th birthday. I'm not sad or scared about turning 30. I'm one of those people who thinks people just get better with age :) My M♥M, who has always made birthdays special, did something ultra amazing for my 30th. She, my Dad and my Obachan (which is Japanese for Grandmother) bought me an orchard!

Now, the entrance to The Farmstead is flanked with 18 fruit trees, 2 cherries at the way front and 16 apples (four different varieties), strategically picked for our region to come ripe at different times of the season. M♥M and Nick worked together to get the trees in for me but honestly, my mother blew us away, she painstakingly raked and smoothed and built perfect wells around each tree. Nick installed drip lines so we'll never have to stress about watering and M♥M finished them off with leftover mesh protection around their fragile trunks. We also put more hotwire around them on the off chance Mrs. Robinson decides to break out and eat all the bark. Not that she's ever been known to do that before {cough, cough}.

I personally think this is the best birthday present ever (and not just because I was born on Earth Day). The apples are a big part of our farm's sustainability plan to grow food for ourselves and our animals and bees and I think there is nothing more romantic than a farm road lined with fruit trees.

In case you're curious, these are the varieties we planted:

• Liberty
• Pristine
• Honeycrisp
• Chehalis
• Zestar
• Lapins Cherry & Van Sweet Cherry

We bought our trees in Rochester, Washington at Lael's Moon Garden. The owner is also the founder, who started his own business 40 years ago after getting out of the military. I consider it a very big honor that he said to me, "You guys remind me of myself when I was your age." Can you imagine what The Farmstead will look like in 40 years? LOVE.