muddy

Since being back from Texas my life has sped up considerably due to the many tasks needing to be completed before spring arrives. On one of the days that had intermittent showers my task was to go to the block place to get more concrete blocks for the building of retaining walls in my garden. These blocks weigh about 33 lbs. each and I limit my load to 30 per trip – about 990lbs. I hauled three loads that day and unloaded by hand.

My garden is made up of four beds on a slope that are 37 feet long and 6 feet wide. To this point I have built three retaining walls of blocks stacked two high and an upper border of one layer of the same material. The only wall remaining to be done is the bottom border wall that will be several layers high. This wall has been postponed until next dormant season because of many other tasks demanding attention with time running out.

Somewhere in the mix were sinus problems that slowed me to about half speed and several sessions of rain. After getting some bales of pine straw I re-strawed the blueberry bed down the driveway and have started on the berry beds on the bedroom end of the house. These require much more time because I am cleaning out all the weeds and grass as I go. This requires screening to separate the dirt from the weeds and grass.

Although a good start has been made in the bed cleaning out process, it is necessary for the dirt to be relatively dry to fall through my screen or a muddy, gummy mess results. This means that I have to wait 3 or 4 days after a rain to start the screening process again. After several rains now I have had to go on to other chores. One of these was to go to Wally World to pick up a “few items” – ha – I was lucky to have enough money!

On a long ago Friday night, GM1 spent the night with us – as did MIL and you might say that we stayed up much too late. Next morn we were dragging around a bit but finally got it together by the PM. The Spice and I attended the wedding of a friend from church – it was a time of joining together – OK, you know what I mean. The reception afterwards was fun on two counts – 1) food and 2) lots of yakking with friends.

Keep in mind this writing is from the past as I am trying to catch up to date. This catch up is because I have been putting max time into the yard and garden and min time into email – not good. Will fill in on more recent times later. God has been good even through sinus problems and feeling crummy – I’m glad. ec

PS - Still new at this - the photos are: Paw paw flowers (strange little blossom) - blueberry bush in bloom - the blueberry row down the driveway - the garden showing the block walls.