Lang Gardens: 4.16.10

More of the same. This stuff might not look all that impressive, but in the next few days as I start adding in the pavers, the pictures in the blog will be more dramatic. This post is for me, a pat on my own back.

This is the path between the area that is to become the compost pile and the nearest set of beds. I started digging this but quickly realised that roughing it in wasn't the way to do it. Dig too little and I have to go back in. Dig too much, and I'll have to build part of it back up to support the compost bin. Let's bust out the measuring tape, shall we?

A few measurements and a landscaping timber later, this edge of the bin is marked. Carry on!

Broken up, weeded, and dug out!

Now to start on the north-south path nearest the driveway. OMG, I was NOT looking forward to this. The skies were threatening so I didn't want to pull the iPod stereo out, so I started this out in the quiet of a Friday morning. The barely visible blue lines on the soil mark the rest of the compost bin and the parameters of the path.

After getting a good start on the digging, I did the marking, which means I had to go back in and do more digging. Whatevs. It all has to get done.

Half dug out! You can see, way down at the end of the pallets of pavers, the small mountain of dirt piling up. Peeps looking for good deals on Craigslist came through for me - I had a guy come by with his truck and we loaded this pile 'o' dirt into it. And so I had room to pile more dirt, and then the next Craigslister queued up to come and get some. Only the next guy was just so cool! His wife came with him, and they were an older couple, and just awesome to talk to. They took one pile home, unloaded it, and came back for another. This time with freshly made kolaches for me and Trent. They came back one last time, and I've promised them more as I keep digging. They live just 3 miles away, so they can come over pretty quick and since I only have the one place to put dirt, the faster I can get rid of it, the faster I can pile up more of it! Am I rambling? I am. I'm rambling.

The light is better in this picture. The sun had come out for a bit. That meant that I was able to drag out the iPod stereo. I might add here an apology to anyone who heard me, er, singing along to Marty Casey and the LoveHammers, or Liz Phair, or Karen O, or The Pretenders, or Florence and the Machine, or AirSupply.

Then again, no one ever apologizes to me for incessant rooster crowing, so maybe I won't.

This path was the main task for the day. I accomplished my goal and am really pleased.

I helped my Craigslisters load up dirt on each of their three trips. While I was waiting for them to arrive the first time, I noticed that my sidewalk bed is overrun with that freaking weed again. OMG, it's making me crazy!! So, I grabbed a beer and my weeding tools and copped a squat and pulled weeds while I waited. There are a ton of zinnia volunteers, a bunch of lamb's quarters, and some amaranth. I cleared out most of the lamb's quarters, but kept the amaranth and zinnia. I hope some of the zinnia are the long stemmed ones, but I'm cool with them either way. They look amazing and help choke out some of that infernal weed.