A long, full weekend

Ah, dear me. My arthritis is acting up tonight, radiating out of my hip like a bad special effect, hurting all the way down into my shins.

It probably has something to do with the whole bunch of gardening we did yesterday and today. Saturday morning I made a box for the strawberry bed, a wooden frame stretched with chicken-wire, so that we and not the squirrels and bunny rabbits can enjoy the fruits of that harvest. The "lid" is really not much more than a theatrical flat writ small, about two feet by five feet. 1x3s and some 1/4" plywood for the corner blocks and that was that. I already had the supplies from other projects so it cost nothing. I've already had one strawberry from the bed, and it was good. Based on what I'm seeing, we'll have a pint of berries by the end of the week.

I took Jami for his first barber-shop haircut. It's a little uneven, but he didn't hold very still so I think I can forgive the barber. He's a boy, he's five. He doesn't need to look like he just came from an upscale salon.

I made some additional boxes for raised beds. I have two more to make, but ran out of wood. The garden layout is formal, and I'll be posting pictures soon.

I spent the rest of the day more or less just lazing around, arranging my music for the concert and being pissy (the reason doesn't much make a difference.) It was a good concert, a small crowd of mostly familiar faces. I was gifted by a friend with a 10x13 print, a photograph of me performing at Main Street and converted (by Photoshop, I'm guessing) to a painting. It is stunning. We're planning on taking it to a frame shop to have it matted and framed in wood, thence to take its place prominently displayed on a wall somewhere. It is an amazing gift.

Today, I tilled the vegetable garden, stirring up the dirt and making it easier to clear the resident vegetation. We laid landscape fabric and put down an initial layer of lawn clippings in the paths between beds - we'll mulch properly later after it compresses and dries out. The layout of the beds forms a rough cross shape with an old treadle sewing machine base in the center onto which will grow a cardinal vine - that'll be the focal point for the whole: the veg will grow in the beds around that, tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions, eventually melons, cucumber, zuchini, and green beans. Pumpkins are in the plans for Halowe'en.

Several weeks ago I posted (Facebook or here, I can't remember) about scoring a large quantity of wood from a house down the street. It's totally suitable for building a short picket fence and today I set Katie up with a pair of gloves and a hammer - she spent nearly two hours removing the old nails. Did a bang-up job of it, too. She asked if she could finish the pile tomorrow...like I'm gonna say "no". If I let her - and I probably will - she'll build the fence, too.

Oh, she also cleaned the gutters on the west wall. My nine year old daughter. Climbed the ladder, cleared the guttering of all the maple whiligigs. Like it was no big deal.

Scored some additional 1-by stock from a neighbor who was preparing to throw it away. It's in pretty good shape, too. It's nail-free, and will also go into the picket fence.

I mowed both our lawn and the portion of our neighbor's that adjoins ours - just for the look of the thing, her lawn hasn't been mowed yet this season. I may very well just do hers every other week just because its the right thing to do, we'll see.

So, the way I figure it, a 2 cubic foot bag of garden soil weighs about seventy pounds. That means we transported close to six-hundred pounds of stuff home from Home Depot, and by dinner-time had unloaded it all and incorporated most of it into the gardens. I'm beat, my hips hurt bad enough I'm considering a vicodin (though I probably won't take one), and I've no doubt I'll sleep well tonight.

A long, full weekend

Ah, dear me. My arthritis is acting up tonight, radiating out of my hip like a bad special effect, hurting all the way down into my shins.

It probably has something to do with the whole bunch of gardening we did yesterday and today. Saturday morning I made a box for the strawberry bed, a wooden frame stretched with chicken-wire, so that we and not the squirrels and bunny rabbits can enjoy the fruits of that harvest. The "lid" is really not much more than a theatrical flat writ small, about two feet by five feet. 1x3s and some 1/4" plywood for the corner blocks and that was that. I already had the supplies from other projects so it cost nothing. I've already had one strawberry from the bed, and it was good. Based on what I'm seeing, we'll have a pint of berries by the end of the week.

I took Jami for his first barber-shop haircut. It's a little uneven, but he didn't hold very still so I think I can forgive the barber. He's a boy, he's five. He doesn't need to look like he just came from an upscale salon.

I made some additional boxes for raised beds. I have two more to make, but ran out of wood. The garden layout is formal, and I'll be posting pictures soon.

I spent the rest of the day more or less just lazing around, arranging my music for the concert and being pissy (the reason doesn't much make a difference.) It was a good concert, a small crowd of mostly familiar faces. I was gifted by a friend with a 10x13 print, a photograph of me performing at Main Street and converted (by Photoshop, I'm guessing) to a painting. It is stunning. We're planning on taking it to a frame shop to have it matted and framed in wood, thence to take its place prominently displayed on a wall somewhere. It is an amazing gift.

Today, I tilled the vegetable garden, stirring up the dirt and making it easier to clear the resident vegetation. We laid landscape fabric and put down an initial layer of lawn clippings in the paths between beds - we'll mulch properly later after it compresses and dries out. The layout of the beds forms a rough cross shape with an old treadle sewing machine base in the center onto which will grow a cardinal vine - that'll be the focal point for the whole: the veg will grow in the beds around that, tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions, eventually melons, cucumber, zuchini, and green beans. Pumpkins are in the plans for Halowe'en.

Several weeks ago I posted (Facebook or here, I can't remember) about scoring a large quantity of wood from a house down the street. It's totally suitable for building a short picket fence and today I set Katie up with a pair of gloves and a hammer - she spent nearly two hours removing the old nails. Did a bang-up job of it, too. She asked if she could finish the pile tomorrow...like I'm gonna say "no". If I let her - and I probably will - she'll build the fence, too.

Oh, she also cleaned the gutters on the west wall. My nine year old daughter. Climbed the ladder, cleared the guttering of all the maple whiligigs. Like it was no big deal.

Scored some additional 1-by stock from a neighbor who was preparing to throw it away. It's in pretty good shape, too. It's nail-free, and will also go into the picket fence.

I mowed both our lawn and the portion of our neighbor's that adjoins ours - just for the look of the thing, her lawn hasn't been mowed yet this season. I may very well just do hers every other week just because its the right thing to do, we'll see.

So, the way I figure it, a 2 cubic foot bag of garden soil weighs about seventy pounds. That means we transported close to six-hundred pounds of stuff home from Home Depot, and by dinner-time had unloaded it all and incorporated most of it into the gardens. I'm beat, my hips hurt bad enough I'm considering a vicodin (though I probably won't take one), and I've no doubt I'll sleep well tonight.