how not to plant an orchard

One of my colleagues had left a note for the Sunday shift that a customer was coming in at 11.30am to collect nine bare root fruit trees, and that as there were quite a lot of them it might be a good idea to lift them and have them bagged up before the customer came.  As there were only two of us on duty this seemed sensible, so we dug them up and put their roots in plastic bags.  Some of the root systems were too large for the normal bags and we went and found old compost bags and used those and tied them at the mouth with string.  We laid the trees down behind the shop where they wouldn't blow over or be trodden on.  Then the customer telephoned to say that his site was saturated and he would appreciate my advice but he didn't want to plant the trees today.  Which decoded meant that regardless of my advice he didn't want the trees today.

I asked how wet the site was and he told me that, put it this way, a couple of cars had to be towed out recently and that the water table was very high.  I suggested that maybe it might not be suitable for an orchard as it was and he might need to think about land drains.  He thought that as it was on a slope it should drain in a week or so.  I don't know what he thinks his trees are going to do the next time there's heavy rain.  It then transpired that the trees were going to be planted in grass, and he hadn't lifted any of the turf yet.  I advised that the trees would need a clear 1m square around them.  Lifting 9 square metres of turf takes a while and  I don't think he'd have been tree planting this afternoon even if he had collected the trees at 11.30am.  I asked if he could heel the trees in somewhere himself, but was told there was no room.

My colleague and I unbagged the nine trees and heeled them in again.  The customer is always right, but some customers are fools.

After that it picked up.  The retired long distance lorry driver from Clacton came in with Ruby the white terrier, who was looking very spruce after having a bath this morning.

I saw a flock of starlings on the way home, not so large as the ones of my childhood in east Devon, but still wonderful, in their mysterious fast-shifting cloud.