More Dirt Work

Posted on by jsudar

Yes, we’ve been playing in the dirt again. We cleaned up the main garden and started planting. Squash: zucchini, delicata, yellow crookneck, butternut and pumpkin. Two kinds of green beans and then spinach, lettuce, carrots and radishes. Oh, and one tomato plant.

In the side gardens, we added new tomato plants, two bell peppers, cilantro and chives. The two tomato plants that got snowed and hailed on are still hanging on. We will see how they do. I’ve begun to thin out the lettuce in the wheel barrow and will probably transplant some of the seedlings into the bed in front of the pepper plants.

We moved Brandy’s dog house. She was unhappy with being so far away from her people, so we brought it closer. We bought a grill as well, and we had the most lovely steaks tonight.

Last but not least, the rose bush is doing well, as are the herbs.

Now I can take a small break from gardening and work on websites, and sewing. I have a skirt to make for a friend and clothes to work on for Battlemoor. 🙂

Dirt!

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I am so exhausted. We’ve been trying to figure out how to dig enough garden for what we want to plant, and the thought of all the shovel work had daunted us. Then in conversation with Brian Rosino, he offered the use of a rototiller. Wheeee!

We picked it up this morning and started on the right half of the back yard. My mom’s yard is huge. After the first go round, we picked up weeds, raked and then took a break. After lunch we trimmed a tree and I took out three sucker trees in the yard. Those got chopped up and or saved out for trellis bits. Dan mowed the front yard while I did a lot of this. Then he mowed the back. While he did a second round of tilling, I raked up and moved the weeds to the area that will be our compost bins site.

Brandy of course thought we were nuts and took a nap in protest of all our work. We think we have about 500 sq ft of garden. 🙂 If the rains will cooperate, we will be planting squash, (3 kinds), pumpkins, radishes and whatever is left of the seeds from the side garden planting.

Around 4pm, we returned the rototiller. We finished up the last of the work in the back yard and then collapsed. Tomorrow is going to be a very stiff day. Even now my hands are aching from all of the weed pulling. Ugh!

Weather…

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We have had crazy weather. Sun, sleet, rain, hail, and now snow. We woke up to 2 inches of it. Luckily it wasn’t cold enough to damage the herbs and other plants.

It was a weird start to a very busy week. Lots of meetings. We also have to pick up Morgan on Friday. I think we will collapse on Saturday.

LiveWell Community Awards Dinner

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Last night after braving a downpour, Dan and I went to the LiveWell Awards and Community Celebration Dinner. We attended as we’ve worked with the various groups to open up the Washington School for use by the public. They’ve been holding cooking classes, and using rooms for meetings, weight lifting, and Boy Scout meetings. The theater has been opened for the local folkloric dance group, El Fandango. Later on, we will be holding the Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival concerts there. As it is the basement that is being used the most, we’ve started calling it the Washington Underground.

Dinner was good. Lasagna and salad with carrot cake brownies. I had salad and a brownie as I can’t eat cheese. It was still good, and (drum roll….) Organic. 🙂

Then it was time for the awards. I never get awards, so I didn’t expect one last night. They handed out the four awards mentioned in the program. Cindy Campbell started mentioning two people who deserved a Community Builders Award, and that they added two more awards for the night. To my surprise, she called my name and Mike Moore’s. He’s our superintendent for Huerfano RE-1. We both got the same award. 🙂 It was wonderful. We got a hat, a shopping bag and a gift card. It was so nice to be recognized for the work we’ve done to open up Washington Underground.

Gardening!

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We have slowly been making over bits of the yard into garden. Some of the work has been transplanting stuff from the other house. Other bits are new. I used the rocks we had gathered a few months ago to make boundaries for various beds. We have seen growth in the rhubarb, roses and irises. Most of the herbs and potted plants survived as well. I have had to replant parsley, lavender and basil. We bought tomatoes and a beautiful yellow daisy for mom. As we’ve cleaned up the yard, we found tulips hiding in the deep grass and under grapevines. We still have more lawn to mow and then plant the squash and green beans in the areas Brandy can’t reach.

Time to begin a new chapter

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In that crazy thing called life. Eight weeks ago, life went to hell in a handbasket. Every time something happened, I thought… “It can’t get any crazier, complicated, worse.” Well, it did. It’s been two weeks since Dad died. We had all the family here that weekend. Aunt Toni and her son Kris, Lori and Bill, Jill and Daniel. It was hectic, sad, wonderful and productive.

While so much of the family was here, we went through a lot of Dad’s stuff. We sorted out clothes, backpacks, drawers full of stuff and even set some aside to look at later. We also moved Dan and I into the bedroom that had been my parents computer room. A door to slam at last. 🙂 First pics are with Daniel and Mom and how the room looked. The next three are how it changed. It was a lot of work. Thank goodness for Bill, Lori and Daniel’s help!

The last of the company left on Monday, and Tuesday we were heading up to take a bunch of stuff to the ARC and then buy some groceries. Just as we were getting ready to leave, the phone rang. It was Tara! She and Celestial had driven all the way from Kentucky to see GiGi (my mom, Great Grandma). So, we had a whirlwind 3 day visit. It was wonderful.

They left on Thursday, and it was time to try and get back into the swing of things. Meetings, work and gardening. More on that later.