It was plant-a-tree day in Seattle yesterday. It was also raining and my kids had expressed no desire to plant a tree and the park for our planting was halfway across the city.

But, Ellie had invited me. But, you know how I hate to rattle around the house all day. But, it is a cool park.

So, I skipped jazzercise (a major sacrifice), loaded the kids, our lunches, our change of clothes, and our new copy of Mary Poppins on cd from the library and headed off to Camp Long.

Everyone at plant-a-tree day was very sweet and very well organized. David picked out a baby Douglass Fir. And Rose got a Hemlock. Then the naturalists helped the kids plant the trees in containers and explained that we would take these trees home, plant them in our own garden, nurture them for a year, and then bring them back to the park to be planted for real. Oh. I thought the whole tree planting thing would be done here now. The kids weren't thrilled by having to give them up ever.

We went with it, and it turned out there were work parties in the further reaches of the forest, actually planting trees and ferns. So, we got our gloves and shovels and were no help whatsoever. We just got really really muddy.

But in the late afternoon, in the now pouring rain, we had a wonderful tree planting experience. Rose chose to plant her tree in front of the playhouse. The neighbor cat crouched in the playhouse (dry of course) and chatted with her as she dug up weeds and cleared a space. David chose to plant his out front where the now dead Japanese Maple used to be. My job was to bring them shovels, hold the trees, and bring more shovels when the first ones broke. You would not believe how muddy and soaked we all got, and they both really only have one pair of shoes, but the trees are in the ground.

This morning they both ran out to check on their trees.