07 April 2008

This weekend was a busy one. It was finally nice enough outside to work on projects, with just a lingering bit of carefully hidden ice and snow in corners of the yard. I'm not sure what the temperature was, but when we got started moving that cinder block, I certainly didn't feel the need for my sweater anymore.

Friday

After dinner we borrowed my in-laws (to-be) truck, since they are so incredibly good to us, and drove over to Menards to get 108 cinder blocks and some 1" chicken wire. When we got there, we found out that the cinder block was on sale for $1.19 a block and a 50' roll of the chicken wire cost about $20. The first layer of our raised beds then rang up to around $150. Each block is 8"x8"x16", so we'll need at least two blocks high to get within 12-24" in height.

Only sixty of the blocks would fit in the truck at a time, without overburdening the poor thing, so we got right to it. Hauling those blocks seemed to take forever, but in retrospect it wasn't so long. By the time we got home at nine, I was pooped, and just wanted to go lay down to "na-ne" just like the kids were. Aside - Nate has always called it na-ne because when he was a baby, he couldn't say night-night.

Back on track. Aaron can never just let something lie - oh no, if it needs to be cleaned, picked up, moved, brought indoors, it's done right away. So he'd have nothin' but cleaning out that entire truck of the cinder block.

That was the last thing I remember that night.

Saturday

The first thing I did when I woke up was go outside and look at my beds. I unrolled my chicken wire, grabbed some wire-cutter thingies (hey, I know what they look like, I just don't know their technical name), and my tape measure. Last week I'd made a to-scale blueprint of sorts of our back yard and plotted where I wanted these beds to be. I got to layin' out wire, cutting wire, and hauling cinder blocks into the exact spot I wanted. I was going to get some pictures of this process, but I got lazy. In essence, I rolled out the wire (to keep predators from coming up into my beds and eating my rabbits or my vegetables) and then just plopped the cinder block on top of the wire. I filled in the center of the beds with card board boxes to suppress that damn creeping charlie (hopefully). I got about two beds done before I called Wanda and asked her if she was ready to go pick up a load of compost.

While I was laying out beds and watching children, Aaron had run over to Menards and gotten the rest of the block. He got back before I called Wanda, and I helped unload the cinder block. Wanda and I ran over to the solid waste facility and picked up a load of FREE compost.

I came back home and spread that stuff out into the beds (with Aaron helping and doing most of it, since my sister arrived unexpectedly to pick up her couches and stuff she was storing in our house).



Aaron finished up one of his projects from before winter hit - getting some lattice up on the sides of the firewood holder.



It was a productive weekend.

Sunday

I rested.

Labels: gardening, outdoors