What's the first step to planting a tree? Well, for us, the first step was to get some compost material to improve the soil. We had heard about a farm in Morgan Hill that sells mushroom compost, or the stuff that mushrooms grow in, since it is only used once and then re-sold for other growing purposes. We borrowed a trailer from our neighbor Scott, and headed down south to the closest approximation of farm country that the Bay Area can come up with.

As we located the farm and the worker who would sell us the steamin' stinky stuff, he directed us to park and told us that a bucket loader would fill our trailer. I hopped out of the truck just in time to catch the dumping of the dirt into the trailer. As I snapped a few pictures, I heard a familiar "Beep! Beep! Beep!" I put the camera down for a split second, and realized that another bucket loader was backing up right in my direction. Time to quit being a citified tourist!

As we drove back to San Jose, we stopped every mile or so to make sure that the trailer latch was secure, since the weight of the load was forcing the tail gate open. That's all we needed, to lose the entire load out on Monterey Highway! We stopped enough to re-fasten the latch that we prevented sure disaster several times. Time to dig a hole!

All these months later, our little tree is growing and prospering. :-)