Procrastination pays off again, my friends. A few days ago I wouldn’t have been able to include today’s most awesome details, now would I have?
See, last Thursday our backyard looked like this.
Specifically, Nico’s portion of the backyard looked like that. It was pretty much his favorite area to push the bikes around, toss sand up into his hair, throw rocks into the bushes, etc etc infinite.
But then this was delivered.
And his world was forever changed. He was a boy possessed. DIRT! DIRT! DIRT!
After a small brawl, I was able to get him inside, where I discovered his tongue, inside of his nostrils, and his EYEBALLS were covered in dirt. I had to hold him down and saline his eyes out, it was that bad.
But still, I had hopes that once we turned the dirt into soil, and the soil into a garden, he’d come to respect and even care for our precious, life giving dirt.
The Saturday after it was delivered, Ryan spread our leaves and compost out over the garden area.
We also plotted out all the rows and the footprint. Not super fun. Had to make a lot of adjustments on the fly. Had to put the boy in front of the tv to do it at all. Blah.
Sunday, Ryan spent a LOT of time moving the dirt to the backyard. He probably put in 7-8 hours filling the wheelbarrow, carting it back, dumping it out, wash rinse repeat. I put an hour or two in as well, just so you know, but he really put a lot of time and energy into what was very back breaking work. At the end of the day, we had this.
Which looks pretty good. Unless you realize that there is still a row and a half undone, and we thought we were out of soil. Ryan and I were pulling our hairs out, trying to figure out if our consultants had fucked up this equation they’d given us to work out how much soil we’d need. Or maybe we’d fucked up. Or maybe the soil company had shorted us. All we knew was we were expecting to be done, and didn’t have enough soil to get there. And could possibly have to spend a few hundred bucks getting more. Pretty anti-climatic after all that work.
The next day, our consultant came by and told us the beds were to high, praise the lord. And over the next week we both took turns, doing what we could before or after work. And today, sweet sweet Thursday, we now have this.
It’s truly a marvel to behold. I had been skeptical and sad about losing so much of our yard, but looking at our sweet virgin garden wiped away any doubt. You can imagine what this guy thought when he saw it.
In fact, it was actually a very challenging day today, as I was trying to get him interested in planting the peas and potatoes that needed to go in, and all he wanted to do was run up and down the rows. A big fat NO in soil management. I could hardly blame him, but I was very stressed, and the physical acts of chasing him and lifting him off our beds was very trying for me. In the end, I was able to get the veggies planted but our rows do not look nearly as nice, and we may have to buy a bit more dirt to fill in the spots that were messed up. I feel awful for taking his favorite play space, covering it in something that he would really love to play in, and then making it off limits for him to play in the way that he wants. There’s no way it makes sense to him right now.
But, luckily everything that needs to be planted right now is, and it will likely be raining for a good while yet, so we’ll have plenty of time for chats about gardening, and what we’re doing, and all the fun things that we CAN do in a garden. I hope it helps.
Now, to have a heart to heart with the cats about shit, and where to put it.
