Japanese Maple Planter

Today I tackled the Japanese Maple Tree planter. I enlarged the brick wall around the planter and re-defined the gravel screenings patio to complete the improvement.

Fall Plans for Front East Side

There is visible the concrete tread of the former driveway about a foot from the wall. Grass grows over it in patches. I was figuring to leave it. I did not have peace with that decision. Peace returned when I decided I would remove all the concrete from this area and anywhere else I find it. When the yard is clear I will call the rubbish man and have it hauled off. I am resigned to having a large, growing pile of concrete rubble for a year or two. The ability to build what I want in the place of this obsolete concrete is worth the trouble.
The fence has ended the use of this area as a drive. The concrete strip hinders development. With the concrete gone I can develop this area which has splendid morning sun. My fall work plan is to construct a bed along this wall about two feet wide. Included here are improvements around the gate. My improvements will not be of a permanent nature as this wall, and the porch need to be demolished and reconstructed. I will do that when I have the money.

Used to be something, soon it's detritus

The concrete track on the right goes all the way to the gate. This is a favorable spot for a planting bed and the concrete track has to go. Chunks of concrete jut out of the ground between the tree and the corner of the porch. This creates a hazard for the lawnmower and inhibits the growth of the lawn here. As part of the fall rehabilitation of this planting bed and this area, I will have to pull up the concrete from the gate to about the first crack in the drive in the front yard. That will do for now. Eventually I want to get rid of this drive when we have a carport in back. The property line runs down the middle of this drive. I could see having a hedgerow or a short picket fence here, or maybe both. That will be something for the next year's fall projects.

Sidewalk Yard Change of Plan

I am not satisfied with the way this project is turning out. The final grade is still an inch and a half too high. I am trying to go too cheap by re-using the old sod. The turf being a mixture of different grasses, mostly weeds, is not uniform. Also, even though I have been very careful cutting and removing the sod, I end up being short about 1/3rd to fully re-sod the area. So the resulting turf is uneven and patchy and mostly weeds. I think that the small amount of sod required for this effort would not be a budget buster.
I think I should go ahead and cut down the rest of this area recovering the excess soil. Then, I will pull up all the sod I have put down, regrade the whole area and then put down some decent sod to cover every square inch.
One good thing is the rich top soil this effort is producing. That aspect of this project is on track. I also found a 1941 silver quarter screening the dirt.

de·tri·tus

de·tri·tus de·tri·tus [di trtəss] n
1. debris: debris or discarded material
2. geology rock fragments: fragments of rock that have been worn away
3. ecology organic matter: organic debris formed by the decomposition of plants or animals
[Late 18th century. < Latin < past participle of deterere (see detriment)]-de·tri·tal, , adj
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

You always have this when you work in the dirt. There is a substantial quantity of concrete around the property that serves no purpose. I am going to have to get rid of it. I already had to pay to get a pile of detritus hauled off. I get hesitant to get out the stuff because of the trouble and expense. But I have made up my mind. I am going to get it all out of the yard. When it is all up I will call the man back and he will make it go away. I will write him a check and that will be that.
I am thinking that I will construct another screen to screen the smaller chunks to get some large gravel. I can use that for fill under walk ways and other projects.

Bob's Quarry

I decided to build a plant that makes processing dirt, compost and gravel easier and quicker. I set the steel pan on a stack of bricks. The screen is much easier to work with it up high like this. I can slide the screen to the side on one of it's long handles and easily dump the screenings out of the way on the ground for later collection or into the wheelbarrow if I want to put it someplace specific. I place the wheelbarrow under the end where I can dump in the screened material from the pan. I no longer have to stoop to shovel out the material. Plus all the material goes out when the pan is dumped, so it is not like scraping out a bowl. Grading and separating material is simple. I can switch from one material and grade to another with no problem.
My first fall project is cutting down the grade of the sidewalk yard. I am half way through with my first execution of this plan and I have accumulated this pile of dirt from that work so far. Much of the work I have planned for the fall involves cleaning out and enlarging the existing beds, and building some new beds. All of that requires processing different types of organic materials in this manner. I also have a couple of construction projects in mind that require gravel. This means that I will mine the patio area to screen and separate the gravel and fine fill. I have an abundance of that material. It is like having money in the bank, or my own little gravel quarry.
When I was a child I liked to pretend I was the County Judge. I would play in the dirt outside the kitchen door with my matchbox cars, trucks and heavy equipment. I built roads and bridges. Eventually my imagination created a county with a city and the surrounding country side with lots of happy people driving in their cars and I was the big boss of it all.

Timber

This is as close as I had to get to the pine tree when it was cut down, I handed the foreman a check at the front door when he came with an invoice after it was done. It was well worth the cost. The pine tree falling on our house is no longer on the list of things of concern.

The pine tree straddled our property line. Pine needles dropped on the house and collected in very large piles in the valleys of the roof. The tree had large poison ivy vines snaking up it's trunk. From the time we moved in we entertained estimates for the tree's removal. Some were given us by guys in battered pick up trucks who wanted cash and some were from bona fide tree services. All of them were in excess of $1000.
When we decided to install the fence Becky was resolute in her decision that the tree had to go before the fence was put in. So we got one more estimate from a real tree service. It came in at $385. That was great. The stars must have been in perfect alignment that day.

Side walk yard - day 2

I am past half way with this project and I think the last half will go much faster. I did not disturb the area around the tree. Looking at the areas I have re-done I think the turf I have laid down is still 1-1/2" too high. I would like to have more gravel in there as well. The turf is a mixture of mostly crab grass, a little Bermuda, and a little centipede.

I am going to go ahead and finish this project in this manner, but I am going to make an addition to my plan for this area. I am either going to get Becky to spring for some sod for this area, or I am going to grow my own somehow. By the time I can get either of these things done the sod I am laying now will have grown into a single layer. With the soil under the sod being so clean and cultivated, I should have no trouble removing this sod, adding some more gravel and scraping off another inch and a half of soil and laying down some nice sod. But this will do for the time being. I would like to have this re-done and sodded by Thanksgiving, but if I have to wait till next spring, I should still have a good window of opportunity to re- grade and re-sod this patch with little trouble.
I am recovering some good topsoil from this site which was part of the plan to begin with.

Cool Weather Project #1 - Underway!

This project has two purposes: One purpose is to lower the grade here so the rain water will drain off the sidewalk. The other purpose is to glean the excess top soil to have for the projects I have planned for the fall. I am happy with the results of both so far. When I began to name and organize all the projects I hope to do this fall I got to this one and realized I would be getting all this top soil from here and therefore I needed to do this one first.

I cut up the sod and removed it. Then I loosened the soil 3"-4" deep with the spade. I shoveled out the soil and wheeled it around back by the compost area for processing. I had a good sized pile. There I screened about half of the soil through the medium screen to cull the stones and clods and wheeled the good soil back to the site. I dumped the soil in the excavation, raked it out and tamped it down. When I was satisfied with the grade I put the sod back and watered it. I put two loads of gravel in the area where there is a chunk of side walk missing. I gently raked the soil up to it, and laid the sod over it. The water drained right off when I rinsed the side walk off.

I got about 1/3rd of this part of the project done. I plan to take up in the morning where I left off today . Maybe now that I have a system I will get the remaining 2/3rds done in the time it took for me to do the 1/3rd. I hope this improvement will suffice until the city comes through and repairs the sidewalk so's it will properly drain. Maybe that will happen within five years.

Fall Project #1 - Locked and Loaded

We've got a spell of cool weather coming and I intend to take advantage of it. The weather outlook for the weekend calls for highs in the 80's and low's in the 60's. The time coincides with Becky's work week and my spine is rested. In my post of 7/23 I decided that my first digging project in cool weather would be cutting down the turf between the sidewalk and the street curb.

I will remove the turf from the area and save to the side. Then I will excavate the soil to a depth to be determined to accommodate turf and still allow runoff water to drain off the sidewalk. Then I plan to put the turf back. The soil I will remove to the compost area. I will sift the soil and the compost pile through a coarse screen. When I get all the material screened I will have one pile of uniform, screened material and one pile of material which will be the new compost pile. This action is my hard target. Once everything is screened I will probably know what to do next.

Fall Projects - Tree planters

Landscaping is like sculpture to me. Except that when one sculpts a statue or an ashtray it is cured and is forever the same. The ability to grow and change dies with the birth of sculpture made of clay or carved from stone. With the landscape, it cannot remain the same, even from day to day. Change and growth define the landscape.

When this was a weed lot we planted these two trees in hopes of a better day. The top one is a fig tree and the bottom is a Japanese Maple. We planted both of them higher than the surrounding ground with a view to raising the ground level. I stacked these bricks around the trees because they looked defenseless. Now as the trees are becoming better established I am making plans to rebuild these brick planters this fall. I will make them proportionally higher and wider, probably a little over sized to allow for growth. That's the way my mother bought me a new pair of shoes for school when I was a kid.

What I have learned from my little mower

The process of gaining experience through trial and error should be quicker and easier for me than it is. I am usually one step ahead of myself in my thinking, but for some reason I put off trying ideas for no better reasons than laziness and lack of self confidence. Part of my purpose of publishing this web log project is to expose my thinking to the light of day. After some seasons have passed I can study and review my patterns of thought. Then with better understanding of my self I may strengthen my weaknesses and capitalize my strengths. Also it requires exercise to keep up a publishing schedule and exercise improves one's fitness.

My little mower is becoming a well-oiled cutting machine. I have wrestled with proper adjustment of both the cutting blade and the cutting height. I generally wanted the cutting blade too tight and the cutting height too low. It's a macho thing. I could not let go of the control and let things be. This wrestling match is not with the manufacturer of the mower, not with Sears, not with any other "they", or "them". I wrestle with my self.

It is easy to think, "That's too tight, loosen it up a bit." It is easy to think, "That's too low, raise the cutting height." It is easy to think, "After cutting the grass, rinse the clippings off the mower with the hose." It takes no divine revelation to think, "Spray the metal parts with W D 40 so they dry and are lubricated." Thinking like that is so easy it seems there is some kind of guardian angel guiding me in my heart's desire with simple and direct ideas. I am sure most people consciously or unconsciously experience this.

These directives can be acted upon easily. So why do I have to argue with my self and make an easy job hard? I am slow to complete simple tasks. Why? With persistence you can't help finally finding your way if you have any sense at all even if you don't catch on quickly. I read somewhere once that God is the God of the quick and the dead. Would to God I were a little more quick than dead. I need all the help I can get.

Little Rock Farmers Market

We hiked across the river on the pedestrian bridge to Little Rock to do some shopping at the farmers market there. It is a good one.

The North Little Rock Navy

North Little Rock has it's own navy. The fleet was in at this time and I was lucky to photograph it. The town is full of raucous sailors on liberty from the dangerous patrols on and under the Arkansas river.

Carport Ideas

Our mortgage banker friend has informed us that covered parking would more than pay for itself in terms of increasing the value of our property. We would just have to sacrifice a major portion of the yard. I am thinking that we could build a carport along the lines of this pavilion. It would be wide enough to accommodate two cars and a garden tool area. On the alley side it would be walled and have garage doors with openers. On the inside it would be open like the pavilion with knee walls. It is this pavilion stretched out wider and longer.
The tool area would be enclosed for security, but there would be wall sections that slide wide open for easy access.
Part of the idea is that if we were entertaining we could use this space as a pavilion and this type of construction would cost less than building a solid structure. This is our non- apartment idea. We are encouraged to add an apartment to a garage for the sake of neighborhood density, but we have an opinion contrary to that.

Mid August

The other day we saw a landscape setting that appealed to us. That got me to thinking that now is the time to see what will be available in the fall to plant. I must keep my eyes open for landscapes we come across that suggest elements of design that may compliment our garden. I will see if a garden center will allow me to photograph plants for this part of our planning stage. I think if I go to a locally owned garden center they may be willing to make deals on plants and broken bags of top soil and so on in the Fall.

I think Brody likes "fetch" better in our fenced yard than he did in the open lots on the block. I know Becky does. Ozzy is a regular contributor to the compost pile.

Sanitation

Our refuse container is normally emptied Tuesdays before 8:45 AM . With the container back on the maintenance porch I rinse it out and put a little bleach in with some water and scrub it and the lid with a long handled scrub brush and rinse well. Then I tip it up to let it drain and dry. The next bag of refuse will not be deposited in the container for a day or two so it will be dry.
I much prefer to put forth the effort to start the collection week with a dry, clean container to starting the collection week with a container that is not clean and dry. I would rather the collection men think well of me for taking care. I am saying nobody wants to deal with a nasty trash can crawling with maggots. This is the most simple and direct method to a continual state of good sanitation for refuse collection containers that I know, so far.


Many years ago I experimented with the collection and composting of restaurant kitchen waste. Every day I collected on average five gallons of waste five days a week. I put it in a barrel. It began to add up. I learned an awful lot from this experiment. One thing I learned was how to deal with so many flies that you felt the wind and heard the hum from millions of tiny wings as they swarmed upward and all around.

$ 597 later

We had a slight indication that our drain was clogged the other morning. The top photo was our sewer drain then. I called a plumber to check it out. What is supposed to be a clean- out has a funky pipe arrangement in it. The "T" was cracked and had silicone caulk holding it together. So trying to wrench off the rusted end cap with the pipe sticking out would probably break it. The toilet upstairs is 80 years old, so taking the toilet off and snaking from there was also out of the question.

So they had to replace this old, cracked cast iron fitting with a new one that has a clean- out. It is the whole "T" shaped cast iron piece with the white, plastic cap on the end in the bottom photo. The plumber confirmed that the silicone was holding the fitting together; that it was cracked like glass. I had noticed this situation when we moved in and I always had this little worry nagging me that one day without warning the pipe would just fall apart.

I watched a television monitor as the plumber ran a camera down the sewer pipe to the main so we could know it's condition. Thankfully the pipe looks very good for it's age. From this cast iron "T" on up all the plumbing in the house is new. and the pipe to the main is good. That is good to know.
Across the river in Little Rock, the sewer pipes have to be inspected in this manner as part of the sale of a home. I think that's a good idea.
Now we have a clean out when we need it and everything is good, but, OUCH! Becky had a $597 nervous breakdown.

This sewer pipe goes out to the main in the alley right through the middle of the back yard under the gate.

Urban Idea- DENSE

Our back gate is about 100' from the spot where I took these pictures. The top photo I took in March of 2008. The bottom photo I took in July of 2009. They were taken from the same spot, but I used some zoom on the top photo.

It is not known how many of these town homes have been sold. I've heard a lot of talk about "pre- sold units", but I have seen only one closure in the paper. We hope they sell rapidly as the starting square foot price is almost twice what we paid for our house.

The idea the developers are selling is density. The more people per block the more feasible the return of retail of all stripes to downtown, or so the theory goes.

The construction and the street closures are beginning to get tedious. I was looking over the bottom photo and I notice location marks for something sprayed onto the sidewalk. I hope this isn't to be dug up.

Now more than ever I appreciate that good fences make good neighbors.

In the bottom photo the town homes form one long structure along the back of the property. There are two single units on the front on both corners of the block. The plan includes three more double units in front along the side walk between these two corner units to be constructed.

The developers planned to do this on two more blocks of this street to the left. We toured the unit on the far end. It was trendy and neat, but not for us. We would want to have a closet in our bedroom large enough to hold our clothes. We also would definitely need enough space to have a queen size bed and at least a small dresser in our bedroom. We are too old to sleep on a futon and we have more than one change of clothes. We would also want some kind of landing in the front entry where at least two people would not be crowded. It has been awhile since we toured the place but the impression that remains is that going in the front door is like boarding a WWII submarine. Seemed kind of tight. (But I'm getting old.)
On the other hand there are lots of bars within easy walking distance of these front doors. Only on Friday and Saturday nights between the hours of 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM do we hear the sound of revving motorcycle engines coming from the biker bar just across from the far corner unit. Seldom are we bothered by the happy laughter and chatter of children at play. I guess children are bothersome anyway. They make life too complicated for some people.
We hope these urban condos sell. That will raise the price per square foot of our house. This is the development idea that dominates our part of town.
Maybe a few years down the road when the dust settles and the current generation gives way to the next the children and stability will come along. Otherwise this will be a fruitless garden; Just another crop of buildings men put their names on, only to be soon forgotten anyway.

Front walk border

Becky is starting to see what she wants in the front in terms of new plants. The top photo was taken spring of 2008. The bottom photo was taken July of this year. Becky saw a front walk something like ours and she decided that she wants a border on either side of our front walk and around the azaleas. She may even go for a low hedge row along the sidewalk.

This area is starting to come into focus for me. I think it is about time I sit down and begin a sketch for the fall landscape construction. Along with this sketch I will adopt a budget so that I can put some new and interesting plants in each of the little areas that make up the whole front yard. When I get something Becky can see, she instantly has a good idea of the items she accepts or rejects in the proposal. Once there is acceptance then we go with that and we have a budget, or an idea of how much we can spend. I think we can get a great improvement with a minimal amount of investment, because the living plants grow abundantly when cared for. That means we will start small.

Next spring I want to see a much improved area come to life.

Three and a half years since

Images like this fascinate me. I am proud of myself for the work I did constructing this wall. I hope it stands the test of time and outlives me. But more than that the images go in through my eyes into my brain and some feel-good center in my brain is stimulated. I feel the anxiety overridden temporarily.

This prods my desire to do more, to do better, to do something for Becky and me that is strong and lasting and of worth. Something the sight of which stimulates gladness in the human heart and brings comfort. Something that will stand as a guide and testament to faith and persistence to our offspring and others that will follow after we are gone.

"A good name is rather to be chosen than fine silver or gold."

The Summer Heat - Like a Woman in Travail

I can't do much in the yard right now. The heat is bearing down with high humidity as it does this time of year. My back needs time to recover from the last round of work. I have to let the grass get long for now.
The back to school sales are starting, so this is the time of year one thinks that it is going to be hot forever. Eventually the heat will break and the humidity will fall. There are many nice working days coming in the near future.

The heat of the summer before the coming cool of the fall reminds me how it is for women late in pregnancy after many months with a baby growing and developing in their bellies. The baby about to be born is so big and so active it becomes everything to the mother. The mother can do little more than endure discomfort and wait for the the day of delivery. She may tend to give up hope and come to believe she will always be pregnant. From that point of surrender you know it's about two weeks and then the pains of labor come.

It'll be a little more than two weeks till the weather breaks though. I don't feel like I have reached that point of surrender. Of course this is the way a man sees. I didn't carry babies but I can draw strength from this example. The yard started as a weed lot this spring and I'm doing what I can through the growing season. The summer is beginning to bear down and I can't do much more than plan and prepare until the cool weather comes on. Maybe this is meant to enlighten me. Maybe this means that when the time comes I will experience new birth in our landscape; that all the growth of the season is leading to a definite, new reality. And like the mother about to give birth I can't really see it yet because of the way of labor.
Extreme joy comes to the mother when she is finally delivered. I have been a witness.

A wall from my past

The owner of this property called me to look at a project. He was going out of the country and wanted something done while he was gone. He had me stand on the spot where this wall is now beginning to take shape and standing at the other end he said, "Build a wall from here to there like the others and make it meandering."
This was the last of several walls he put in. Unlike the others, this one had to be dug by hand due to the site location, so I think that's why the crew that did the others would not do this one. One of the masons on site, who was a recent graduate from the school of architecture at the U of A, advised me on construction techniques. He suggested that I just stick the blocks in the wet concrete as I poured the concrete footer. I did those few blocks and gave it up. Instead, after pouring the footer, I mixed up mortar and laid the blocks with a trowel and a string line and a level.


















I am about half way through construction of this wall. At the far end it will be three courses high for about two-thirds the length and two courses the last several feet. I thought it meandered sufficiently.
The wall above and to the left in the photo is finished except for the top. The mason did the rock veneer.







The wall in the foreground is finished with the top installed. The wall in the back still needs the top. My wall in the middle is done and ready for the stone veneer.

When the man got back from his journey, he was satisfied. After I collected my check he engaged me further to back fill these walls with gravel. This property is way out west of town. I will have to go out there sometime and see what everything looks like now, three years later. I will get photos from these spots and put them up for comparison.
I did this March of 2006. I love this kind of work. I would like to build a graceful footbridge with a grass deck.

Trust, Acceptance and Fortitude

This is us in our garden. We haven't learned how to really enjoy our garden. Sometimes we feel overcome with doubt and worry. Anxiety steals happiness. Sometimes we lose sleep. We become inactive and uninspired.
Last night was like that. Becky and I lay awake at 3:00 AM whispering our worries. It seems like it comes down to money; that if only we had more money we could fix everything that threatens and bothers us. We were glad we had each other to hold.
As I lay there in the dark I thought about the tempting serpent in the garden of Eve and Adam. The idea that money is the solution to all problems is a seductive temptation.
I thought about a parable Jesus told, commonly known as, "the parable of the wheat and the tares." A man sowed good wheat seed on his land. At night his enemy came and sowed tare seeds. When the seed sprouted the hired man came to the land owner and told him, "How come there are tares coming up with the wheat?" The landowner said, "An enemy has done this..." The hired man asked, "Should I have the men pass through the land and pull up the tares?" The landowner said, "No, they will pull up the good with the worthless. Just let both grow together and at harvest first pull up the worthless and bundle them to be burned, then gather up the wheat into the granary."
This parable is told in the book of Matthew, the 13th chapter. The good grows up with the worthless. I see this in many ways from my own thoughts both good and worthless, to people who do nothing but hinder personal, worthwhile endeavor with their conversation; people unworthy of trust.
I tell Becky, "Marriage is our strength. Together we can do as we see fit." Money alone will not fix anything.
Jesus told many parables that came from the earth, out of the garden. I thought on this in the wee hours. I thought about the parable of the sower who sowed seed. Some of the seed landed on the rocks, some landed in the weeds, some was carried off by the wind, some was devoured by the birds, some was trod underfoot. These would not bear fruit. But, mostly the seed landed in fertile ground where it grew to harvest. Jesus explained the seed represents the word of God which is sown in the human heart. Some hearts cannot bear it. But the point made by omission is that life is for the living and we, of the living, should receive strength to live abundantly.

I thought on David, the king of Israel. As a young man he was a shepherd and he kept a flock of sheep. When his flock was attacked, without mercy, by the lion and by the bear, he took offensive action to destroy the murderous beasts without hesitation. He would not, could not, allow his flock to suffer injury. His life was to protect his flock.

I am saying that doing my duty does not mean allowing myself to be eaten alive in my own garden for the sake of being polite or keeping the peace. On the contrary...

Past Experience

We live in this urban area, about six blocks from here. I worked for the Downtown Council last year in it's first year of greening the downtown. This is a bed I would rework as part of my job with that organization.

This was my set up: After putting down a plastic tarp to keep the dirt off the sidewalk, I pulled the border grass and extra holly bushes. I pruned and re-arranged the holly bushes. I used the small bypass shears, I think they are called, for the pruning. I used a three-point shovel to cut back the nandinas and to dig and cultivate the bed. This all turned out to be back breaking. A garden spade would have been the best thing to use. My hand also took a beating from the long use of the by-pass shears.

My job was to get the beds cultivated and ready for planting annuals. I worked under the direct supervision of a competent landscape architect. I learned some good stuff doing this. I learned I would rather be a gardener than a painter.

I left the beds with the soil raked smooth and loose enough to a depth of 8" so that the landscapers could just stick the annual plants right in the ground by hand. It involved moving some of the holly bushes and re-planting the border. This created two flower beds; One bed on the street side and one bed on the sidewalk side, with the Youpan holly in between. The holly greened right back out.
This bed took me about 10 hours to get straight.

I went by this bed yesterday to take a picture for this post and found it in poor shape. Then, as now I felt the work should have been more gradual and sure. Take it one bed at a time and put it in shape, irrigation and all. Then tend it daily. At the time the irrigation did not work in these beds. It took a couple of weeks for an irrigation company to get the irrigation up and running. In the mean time I had to water all these beds by hand, something that took four hours to do, most every day, in addition to my other duties.
My opinion is that the organization got greedy and bit off more than they could chew. They started off with a grand hurrah, but now the project appears shipwrecked, and after only one year. Too much big talk and public relations and too little doing. Talk is cheap. I felt used; prostituted. A couple of weeks later I was digging a bed further up the street when something popped in my lower spine and my life changed forever. Now this bed I gave myself to with great enthusiasm is so poor that I don't have the heart to photograph and show it here. If you are going to do something like this it has to be maintained and tended and encouraged to grow like a baby. Care has to be given to it continually or soon it will show neglect.

Grounds Keeping With a Purpose

I employed these tools to get the yard in shape for a cook out:

• The blower and 100' power cord
• The lawn sweeper
• The lawn mower, with screw driver, liquid wrench and a piece of paper for adjusting
• Garden spade
• Steel rake
• Shrub rake
• Wheel barrow
• String line set up
• Fine, med, coarse screens
• Hand truck
• Steel pan
• Recycle bin
• Water hose w/ spray nozzle and brush
• Gloves
• Spike sandals

I enjoy having good tools and being able to get them out to do work. The work of this day was to prepare for a cookout honoring the visit of Becky's son's girlfriend. I must say I produced awesome Bar-b-que chicken, Cajun sausage, a pork roast and lamb chops from my grill that evening.
I got a great deal of satisfaction as guests came outside to sit on the swing or on chairs to enjoy the pleasant evening in our backyard garden.

The Garden Spade

Recently I purchased a Ridgid garden spade from Home Depot. The cost was $30. The blade is flat and it has a serrated edge. The blade is thicker than a regular shovel and does not flex. I have never used anything better for cutting sod or soil and digging. This is a very sturdy and useful tool. Now I know why you always see English gardeners walking around in wellington boots carrying a garden spade. The boots keep their feet dry from the morning dew. Real wellington boots probably have steel or otherwise sturdy soles to facilitate digging with a garden spade.
I used the fence stakes and the string line to mark the line to edge. Maybe I should point out that there is a brand new top flight minor league baseball park a couple of blocks from our house. I draw inspiration from the way the field is kept. When we walk by there I like to just look at the field and examine all the details of it's grooming. I can try and imagine how those guys do what they do to keep it.






The small photo at the top left shows cutting the sod with the garden spade along the line. It worked well at an angle. First I went one direction as the photo shows loosening the soil every few inches. Then I went the other direction in the same way. Then I did the edge straight up and down the line between the grass and the gravel apron. The sod and soil lifted out easily as though unconnected to the ground.
I screened the soil into the steel pan through the medium screen to separate the grass and big clumps from the finer material. Then I used the fine screen to separate the larger pieces of gravel. I returned the soil that passed through the screen to the site and the gravel in the screen I poured into an old recycle bin. I used a hand truck to move the gravel to a pile on the other side of the compost pile.
These are all the tools I used to do the edging/ gravel mining.