I took this.....
And made this!
It was actually the easiest part ofcleaning/sanding/priming all the cupboards.
With a little help from a friend, we got this accomplished on a Saturday night!
I am great company eh?
I know it is just primer, but it is my 2nd can!
And I am done with this phase and have just bought the actual paint!!!
(please kindly forget that I started this project in November)
A tree left our skyline.
I preferred the threesome but after a walk thru the neighborhood we determined it was 2 different property owners, so we are unlikely to lose the other 2. The trunk is now completely gone.
The lovely Crocus' graced our presence all day this Saturday,
opening wider and wider, making our dirty chores somehow funner....
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| I had to make this pic bigger because all the other pictures hurt to look at. |
While we went from this....
to this...Once the sun starts going down the pictures are really hard to get decent pictures.
We measured it and it is exactly 1ft deep. We amaze me sometimes.
I hope you can all see the progress that left us groaning and limping today! We are some tired units ready for bed at 9pm on a Saturday night. Grueling work! I did time our slowest load. 15 minutes to fill a wheel barrow! Travis cuts the dirt from the earth, and loads up my sifter with 5ish shovels of dirt(clay!!)I sift rocks and clear rocks to bucket and REPEAT. For 4 HOURS!
We have 1 more section of fence to do this to before we get to the pretilled garden of last year which will be a relief.
The point of all this is to bring in good dirt for veggie growing. Meanwhile using the bad soil instead of creating a huge pile of it. I tried giving up this project over and over and Travis won't let me. I have suggested NOT having such a huge garden, building raised beds, selling the house and having children and waiting 10 years for them to do it.
I'm pretty sure there are easier ways to do this--but this is the cheapest most efficient method.
This is what we created :
I always miss the before pictures so you get a during picture..
We were about a foot short all the way around this South Garden along with every other part of the retaining wall we inherited....
This is the South Garden after.
It is a bit dirty after all that work, but I could not push a broom any longer. Just too much like the raking action I had been doing all day. I get to plant every plant I ever dreamed of in this lovely full sun garden! Lilacs, roses, peonies, Oh my!
We also finished off Travis' garden, the grass strip. It is all so much nicer to the eye, even just dirt! Travis says mowing will be so much easier... I am not sure if it is because it is NOW less grass, or the eventual grass will be even....
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| My first daffodil snuck in to this pic at the top right |
And with all that work and creating we have a whole lotta rocks.
Rocks mixed with CLAY!
I have lost count of how many buckets worth now.
But on Saturday we were averaging 1 bucket full of rocks per wheel barrow full of dirt.
That is 1 bucket of rocks per 15 minutes and I only have 3 buckets!
Now we must wash off the rocks for some future use,
which I have no doubt we will find with the rainfall and drainage of the clay
The best part of the rocks!! This one we picked up at the cement dump of Pacific Topsoils. Paid to get rid of cement, and brought home a huge rock as a trophy!
This one is a close 2nd in size--and we found it in our yard.
I am not sure what I want with these gigantic rocks, but want them I do.
In other news, I caught Fred sleeping this week! He is an early riser and is usually up before me. In 8 years I have never seen him sleeping! By the time I found the camera he was waking up.
Dirt, rocks, dirt, rocks... soon we will be back to having garden and moving upstairs!!!
Yea on the cupboards! Painting will go so smoothly now.
ReplyDeleteHauling dirt if no fun but your garden will thank you! See if you can find some straw or something to put in under the "good soil" to invite the earth worms to your garden. They'll feed the plants.
I like the big rock. You'll find places to tuck those in. I have a piece of limestone just covered with shell fossils. I had to have it and now it lives by my butterfly bush.
You have been very busy and making lots of progress! I keep forgetting to mention that we live in the same town. Maybe everyone around here has that same yucky clay soil full of rocks. I think you're smart digging out the old soil and mixing in new. That's what we are trying to do with our front yard. I've read manure and compost are both good for breaking down clay.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet you'll be so happy when those cupboards doors are hanging in the kitchen. That's been a lot of work.
I'm so glad to see all the progress you're making on your house and garden. You've started painting your kitchen cabinets -- WooHoo! They will look great!
ReplyDeleteLove the big, bright, cheerful Crocus flowers. Congrats on all that sifting, that's hard work! Hope you find a use for all the small rocks. Big ones are always welcome accents in the garden. You might have saved yourselves some work just building raised beds.
Looking forward to seeing what you grow in the veggie garden this year.
Well, talk about busy! The cupboards are really coming along now...can't wait to see the end result. I think you have the right idea about having kids and letting them do the work, the only problem with kids is, they grow up and leave you when you're old and really could use 'em. (I guess maybe that's where grandkids come in handy?)
ReplyDeleteAfter moving all that clay and rock, no wonder you are stiff and sore, it tired me out looking at it from here. Be very careful with the rock collecting, look what it led to around here....
You make me feel tired just looking at all that work. I've been so lazy around the house (and garden). When you're done feel free to come sift my yard as well... though I highly doubt you'll take me up on that one. Maybe this year I'll get it all cleaned up so I can actually work on it. Can't wait to see your fruits and veggies this year! That's alot of ground to work with!
ReplyDeleteThat garden area looks awesome, I'm so jealous! I have only a few areas of full sun in my garden, we have lots of lots of trees blocking the sunlight. PS, yes aspargus plants takes 2 years to develop asparagus spears. I planted mine last year so I'm praying that we get spears this year. However, it snowed today, and I hope that didn't kill off the baby spears I saw in the ground. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteThis is so exciting! Looks like you're busy with lots of projects! I like travis' garden - the grass strip. I did a big project that require lots of stone a few years ago and I had a broken back every night. I can't believe I did it but you just have to move forward. I love your before and afters.
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