Weekend warriors

The city collected all the downed limbs from February's ice storm and turned them into woodchips. Then, rather than pay a disposal company to take the chips, somebody had the legitimately brilliant idea to just give them away to the public. And so, yesterday I went out to a big grassy lot with my dad and loaded up a full pickup load of free mulch. You cannot beat that.


We took the first load to my parents' house and then went back for another load for our house. Luckily the weather was really nice, warm and sunny but with a pretty steady wind to keep it from being overly hot. We used most of the second load to add a new, thick layer of mulch to the long-neglected landscaping around the front and side of the house:



I don't have a "before" picture, but everything looked about the same, except with more weeds and maple seedlings.

Indy inspects the pile of leftover mulch and
contemplates whether or not he should pee on it.

While Dad and I were finishing up with the mulch, MB and BoMB were out buying a little grill and supplies to have a cookout. Dad, Mom, my sister, and their dog joined us, and we had a really nice time. Now that we're finally getting our yard fixed up, I think we're going to end up having a lot more get-togethers out there.


Today, MB and I went out around 1:00 and picked up a load of really nice tile bricks from another freecycler, and then I worked in the garden. I had hoped to get the entire garden plot covered with newspaper and landscaping fabric, but it was hot and I was pretty tired from yesterday, and I had to scale back my ambitions. I really wanted to get a raised bed built for the seeds I'm going to attempt to grow, so that's what I spent the afternoon doing.

pile of fill dirt, courtesy of my cousin MacGyver
Bricks from a freecycle pickup a few months ago. And look! I'm using a level and a tape measure. That means bed building must be serious business.
getting there
inspection time!
Finally done!

I planted three rows of snap peas and two rows of lettuce, and also transferred my pitiful onion sprouts. Now if only I could have another weekend to recover from my weekend!