Mar 12-13, '10

I picked up a load of compost from the city over lunch on Thursday. Man, was the truck over loaded after they dumped a scoop in the back. In the dark that evening I spread 25-30% of it on the yard and in the beds in town. Friday I gave blood at 12:30 (my 12 gallon mark), so we were late getting off. Then we stopped in Hindsville and got some red and yellow onions (Sally had already purchased collard greens and broccoli) and some zebra grass. We arrived about 4pm to grey, chilly and damp weather.

Garden
I pulled the truck up parallel to the garden and shoveled just over half the load onto the mounds right over the fence. Then using a shovel I turned it in. That was the hard part. (It wasn't until later I noticed the blister on my hand.) Sally went ahead and planted most of the collards and broccoli that evening.

The next morning it was drizzly, so the compost was a mess. I carried the rest of it into the garden using a bucket -- 6 or 7 shovel fulls per bucket load. I just dumped these around the garden and will need to work them in the next trip out. I used one bucket load to amend the soil where I planted the zebra grass -- out front in the Y in the road. Just felt like it needed something there other than the big blue stem. Sally got the onions planted and the garden looked pretty good.

The truck was a mess, so I got the hose out of storage and sprayed out the bed and some of the mess off the sides.

Cindy
Cindy ran a 10K in Eureka Saturday morning and came out for a quick visit. It was windy and raw out, so we spent a little time in the house before I walked her around the bluff, up the hill, and back through the woods -- all just past the house.

Firewood
Since we couldn't get decent air fare tickets, it was looking like we would be driving to Chicago the next weekend. I still needed about a third of a load of firewood for Dave and Sarah (18 to 20" pieces), but it was too wet for me to drive back up into the back pasture as I had done last weekend. So after sharpening the saws I went up the road and cut hickory limbs on the opposite slope, threw them down the hill, and then hauled them back up to the road. Many of these were splitting size, but it was difficult since there were lots of joints. (I ended up taking three pieces back to the barn where I will use wedges to split it.) At the barn I finished loading with the hickory I had cut the past couple of months, and just bit of white oak I had cut their size.