The Occasional Blogger

Tonight the guilt for neglecting my poor little blog has wrenched me away from cleaning up dinner dishes (leaving them for Melanie to do) to write just a short little update. A feeling that I must grasp every moment to work in the yard has washed over me lately. Plus the weather has been cooler and gorgeous, making my excavation work much more comfortable.

Now I can happily announce that the Big Dig of 2009 is officially over!

Yesterday I finished shoveling and raking the mounds of dirt back into the hole, tamping down and removing more rocks for the rock piles. It's fairly smooth and level now and waiting for a nice mixture of steer manure and top soil to finish it off. There is more to be done though! First we need to plant these shrubs


on that sloping rock retaining wall.

Precariously balancing myself on that little ledge, I managed to dig the first hole to plunk one of those shrubs in. Eventually, soon . . . sometime this month . . . I hope . . . they'll be planted and growing happily in their new home. When they've grown a couple more feet, they'll provide a nice screen between our yard and the neighbor's.

Also over the long weekend DH and I drained the water from the waterbed that we've had for thirty years, which Kirsten had been using lately, listed it on Freecycle and got it out of our house!! Kirsten is sleeping on a trundle until we find a new bed frame for her. She's ecstatic that her room feels so much larger now.

Of course, school has started. I have been readjusting to NOT driving the boys to xcountry practice and Good News clubs, etc. Getting up at 6 a.m. once again is not much earlier than my summer schedule, but sure feels like it! Friday was the Hanford Jamboree for our local xc teams and my boys did quite well for themselves coming in at 11:46 and 11:52 (or something real close to that) on the 2 mile course. This Friday we'll be driving up to Spokane, then on Saturday is the Tracy Walters Invitational our team will run in. This one will put much more pressure on the guys as they'll be running against the best teams in the state. But we stand to do very well against them this year and we're hoping everyone stays healthy!

DH has been busy himself outside the last week or so. We ordered some more gravel for the front drive, and small red rock to add to our back patio. He and the boys have been taking a wheelbarrow load or two most days and raking it onto the previously laid stone. Unfortunately, the stone we bought four years ago is no longer available here, so we found something that we think complements the stone well, especially once it's all compacted.

Oh I have more plans for this area and DH is groaning at the thought as it means a building project for him. Hmmm, probably more than one building project . . .

Stay tuned, if you can stand more gardening. As soon as the temps force me indoors, there will be plenty o' stitching, you can be sure!