Thank goodness for friends. My husband and I got up this morning (well, I was already up, because 5 a.m. is Victor's walk) and walked to Home Depot to pick up the wood for the retaining wall for our new path. The guy near the landscapers lumber took one look at Chris's old hockey bag and very carefully dissuaded us from trying to carry more than 50 feet of lumber home. It was only a half mile or so, but his point was valid. We got the other things we needed and proceeded home to remove all of the grass in the pathway.
Our friend (thank you!) showed up shortly after we finished the grass removal and kindly drove to the Home Depot to pick up all of the wood. We then spent the remainder of the morning drilling wood, placing it and nailing it down with spikes, and then laying down sand. We had a quick lunch of Chinese food and finished evening out the sand.
There were over 70 pavers that we picked up from the driveway at the bottom of the hill and then placed. Chris did most of the placement, while the two of us did most of the carrying back and forth. P is much stronger than I, and carried nearly double what I carted up the hill. They were almost 40 pounds a piece, so I was glad that Chris and I were not doing it alone.
We were finished with the laying of stones at about 2:30, when they brought the pallet back to the store. I brought Victor in, which was a bit of a relief. There are still a few more things to do. Move the old stone somewhere less irritating, finish adding in the extra sand, cutting the last stone to fill the remaining gap. It isn't a lot of work, but we would love to get it done before next weekend.
Of course, with all of this and the poor weather this weekend, we never did get around to spreading grass seed. This week will be a lot of clean up. Spreading and watering seed, and hopefully next weekend I will get to work on the garden a bit.
Tonight is Victor's first training class. We've been working with our clickers to get used to them, but didn't really do our homework. Some of it we were already doing, but there were a few things that we just missed when I was reading the packet. Hopefully we will get through class tonight without going bonkers. We are both exhausted, and close to collapsing for the day.
My husband took this picture while I was sweeping extra sand back between the pavers. It was a bit of a shock, but despite being tired, dirty and generally not much for the camera (I look horrible in most photos), this one came out pretty well.
Of course, despite it not being that cold, I am dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and a fleece jacket. Yard work was warm enough only to shuck a single layer.
In other news: my little garden might have a chance. My basil is growing in a window box, but I need to find a good place for it. The box doesn't fit on any of my windows. There just isn't enough of a gap. My seedlings are starting to sprout. I have 3 or 4 tomato plants coming up, and I'm hoping to see similar activity in the next few days in the pepper and strawberry plants.
One of my friends has some rabbit manure (which I believe she has composted), which I am hoping to get next weekend - a weekend which is already incredibly full - to add to my garden, so I can finally set up my grow beds and plant my direct sewns (onions, shallots, pattypans) into the ground.
Of course, I have no idea how well this will work. I know last year I tried a number of times to grow swiss chard and got nothing for my efforts. Heck, last year I got 3 or 4 peppers, a couple of tomatoes and nothing else. I got tomatillo plants from a friend later in the season, and those fruited, but I didn't quite know what to do with them and so they fell to the ground for the next year.
My blueberries are supposed to come this week, so hopefully everything will be far enough along that I can plant this upcoming weekend. I really want this year's garden to be much more bountiful than last year when I didn't start until the first week or so in June.
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