Being a Do-Gooder is Hard Work Apparently

My little do-gooder...

Last spring a builder came in and took down a bunch of trees on 3-4 different lots in our neighborhood.  It just broke Bebe's heart (mine, too) to see the trees coming down.

The poor birdies and bunny rabbits that lived there! :(  In the happy little wooded lots were piles of red clay soil sprouting unhappy little marker flags for future foundations.

The conversation that ensued went something like this:

"Oh, Mommy!  The trees coming down.  It's is sooo sad.  I can't even look."

"Do something about it."

"Like what?"

"Plant some trees."

"Where?"

"I don't know.  Somewhere where they won't likely be cut down.  Your school, maybe?"

And from there...a project was born.

In May, Bebe wrote a proposal to plant trees on the playground at her school and submitted it to her principal.  The principal accepted.  Bebe wanted to plant trees right then, but with summer approaching fast we told her it would be best to wait until late fall.

In July, she went up to the school, walked the playground with the principal, and they discussed places to plant.  Her top priority was to place trees in areas where kids could get some relief from the sun.  Shade is a rare and precious thing on her playground on hot days.

This fall, Lowe's gave us a deal on 8 maple trees.  And yesterday, on the coldest day of the year so far, Bebe, her daddy, and I planted those 8 trees at her school.  One by the window of her favorite teacher (the one most important to her)....2 behind each dugout bench at the baseball/kickball field...and 3 behind the outfield fence.  It was 32 degrees (or lower with the wind) and Bebe says to me, picking at the handle of her shovel watching as I begin to break a sweat from jumping incessantly on my shovel to break through rocky spots, "Mama, this is harder than I thought".

Then this gem bit later as we built 'donuts' around each tree to keep the water in...3 hours after we first began and Jason has man-handled a gas-powered augur, several shovels, carted wheelbarrows full of topsoil and buckets full of water..."Mama, I wish Daddy would help us with this dirt.  We've had to do everything."

That girl...oh my, she's lucky we love her.