May 2026 – Starting out for me with TREES!

My May 2026 started out with an email on the 7th that I had been waiting on since February. It was time to pick up my 350 tree seedlings! I got the email on a Thursday night at 5:30 and immediately my heart plummeted. Their times for pickup were Mon-Fri 8:30-4:00 so unless I was going to skip out on my day job I would have to get them that very next morning or my little seedlings would be sitting in a box all weekend and I couldn’t let that happen! Not that my boss didn’t know this was coming and would have been totally understanding – I still made it to work on time.

It took nearly three months but our cold, freakishly dry and miserable spring finally came to an end. Here in northern MN going from lows in the 20s to highs in the 80s in about a week would have been a normal “spring” for us. Not this year.

We got more snow in April than we did all winter (and it wasn’t much) and our highs in March were quite a bit warmer than April as well. It was super annoying. We’d see a few days in the 60s and plummet back to 10s over and over and over again. It wasn’t decent for winter or summer people.

I can’t remember scratching to get out of the house worse than I did this year.

Cabin fever is a real thing lol.

In my last post I talked about the tasks I wanted to complete in May and having my trees already planted by the first weekend was a solid win for me. Not to mention, within just a couple days, I also got my garden planted and my new irrigation installed for it too!

I had not a small amount of folks tell me I was nuts for planting my garden so early but I couldn’t help it.

May 2026 I looked at the forecast and literally that weekend I planted trees was the last weekend of freezing lows. After that spring actually arrived with lows only in the 40s. I felt confident my garden would be OK and, so far anyway, I was right. Most people don’t plant their gardens here until Memorial day weekend so I got nearly a two week jump.

We have a short growing season so that’s a big deal!

I might actually grow a pepper this year! I’m kidding! I didn’t even bother to PLANT peppers this year lol. Maybe someday I’ll try again but after years of failure I’m planting veggies now I know I can actually grow.

So, how did tree planting go?

Every single part of my body hurt. I hurt from the hair down. My poor back. My poor feet. My poor hand with three blisters from my drill. I planted the first 200 on my own after work that Friday and my nephew came on Sunday to help me plant the rest. It ended up being over 360 trees!

Guys, I had to sit to get dressed for days lol I couldn’t bend over anymore!

At one point I saw my nephew just crawl from hole to hole while he was planting instead of getting up between them and I didn’t blame him one bit!

May 2026 I got a 1 inch auger bit for my drill to make the holes and it was absolutely the only way I would ever do this if I ever plant trees again. No shovels, no spades, just a quick drill down to make the hole and drop in the tree. I also put an orange flag by each of them and its totally adorable to look out my window in the morning and see all of those flags flapping in the wind.

I’ll post more extensively about it later this year with an update on how they’re doing etc. The biggest problem is that it just won’t rain. Over eight thousand acres have burned in my state this spring!

When I ordered my seedlings in February I never even considered that I’d have to water them…

So I ordered 300 feet of hose to add to the 100 feet I already have.

I’m going to be getting my steps in this year… *head hits desk*

I got my pond started! A friend of a friend brought over their skid steer and dug it out for me. Its in an L shape that wraps about 50 feet around my garden with its deepest point of nearly 4 feet.

They also roughed up my ground where they could /spread the dirt around so I can get a start on getting rid of my grass.

I’m still so mad I let Lodi talk me into what I consider a “dead” yard.

Having so few dandelions bloom this spring just enraged me. Its gonna take a lot of time but someday I’ll have a yard of creepers, clovers and bloomers for the butterflies and the bees.

Memorial day weekend I planted one more tree and it was for my little dog Link. I buried his ashes with a Snow Sweet apple tree in the sun in his dog kennel right by where I buried my dog Diesel before him. It was hot enough, labor intensive enough and I was still sore enough from planting all the other trees that it wasn’t quite as emotional as I thought it would be.

Also the ridiculousness of a six foot tall tree riding shotgun in my two door Honda also lent a bit of hilarity to the moment…

Once it was all done though I sat on his back step and told his apple tree how much I missed him. It was as if I filled the hole of the loss of him with something vibrant, blooming and beautiful. And now I have a place I can visit Link any time I like.

May 2026 I glanced back at my April post to see how I’m doing so far on my “list” and not too bad! I completed the four top things I wanted done in May: Plant my seedlings, dig my pond, plant my vegetable garden and plant Link with his apple tree.

There was only one other thing on the list that was time sensitive that I did not get done.

I wanted to move all of my perennial flowers up to around my garden but I ran out of time so it will have to wait for this fall. Which, conveniently, is a better time for them to be transplanted anyway.

Its been nine months since the restraining order was put in place on Lodi after he was arrested for assaulting me and drinking and driving. My life is settling and so good now. I have friends again, I have time for family again and to focus on my job and this blog again. In fact, I have so much time now I almost don’t know what to do with it all!

The drop in chores in the house alone is shocking.

I had quit doing his laundry months before because of how ridiculous the amount had become. I was doing 3-4 loads a WEEK. Now I do 3-4 loads a MONTH. (He did not have a dirty job or anything like that.)

I swear he must have been picking out his clothes and instead of putting back what he decided not to wear he had to have been just tossing it in the laundry hamper. Of course once he was doing his own laundry the amount dropped considerably…

Its the same with the dishes. I like to cook so I’m still cooking nearly as much as I did before but going literally from 2-3 loads of dishes a WEEK to 2-3 loads of a dishes a MONTH just baffles my brain.

How does one dirty that many dishes and WHY?!

Between the dishes and the laundry you can imagine how my electric bill has plummeted… He and I had actually had arguments about it. I lived here alone before him and even though everything has gotten more expensive I KNEW something here was borderline on the ridiculous but even I couldn’t have imagined just how much.

My grocery bill may be the most astounding.

Lodi binged on expensive crap junk food only to turn around and head for the gym the next day. Our grocery bill was over $900 for groceries one month and the average was at least $600 a month. (Of course I encourage going to the gym but paying for a gym membership so you can eat 5,000 calories of crap every day seems ridiculous to me.)

Me alone now my monthly grocery bill is rarely over $100.

I’m trying to imagine how this is possible without him doing it deliberately. All of the household chores, laundry, shopping, cleaning, stocking, bill payments, management, pets etc. was all on me. (Yes I was also working full time though less hours in person.) Is it possible that, because it was “out of sight out of mind” he wasn’t even aware he was being so abusive and wasteful of everything?

I know I’m super frugal but that’s crazy!

The drop in chores and bills has been remarkable for my mental health. (Not to mention everything else besides…)

May 2026, I had a rather large visitor one late night lol my cameras got an awesome video of a gorgeous black bear wandering through.

I don’t know how I went without my cameras before! I got them installed after Lodi’s arrest. I knew he would show up and steel anything he could but I guess he decided he didn’t want to get arrested again as the restraining order makes it illegal for him to come within 500 feet or me, my work or my property.

Having the cameras has been super fun when it comes to the wildlife I’m thinking about putting up a couple more.

On the docket for June I want to finish siding my little shed and the house siding in a few places that needs fixing. I also have just a little bit left to finish my new front door. I might also go ahead and build my flower boxes for where I plan to transplant my perennials this fall and I also plan on building a compost bin up beside the garden too so I have somewhere to toss weeds etc.

And all of those projects I have all summer to do!

I wanted to plant 11 big trees this year too to make a “fence line” to define my yard but they’re super expensive and my back and my feet are begging me to stop already lol