Thursday, May 24, 2007

how much is 9 yards

This is! At 8:00 a.m. this morning a dump truck delivered gravel for my walkways. I was so excited as have been wanting to do this for a couple years now. But the other part of me knew it would be a lot of hard work. We contacted Juneau's high school to see about hiring a couple football players (they hire out to earn money for travel) but was told that since it was Memorial Day, no one would be available.

We asked to have eight yards of D1 gravel delivered and they gave us nine, just to make sure we requested enough. All I could think of was ohhhhh my poor aching body! After hauling gravel to the back yard for, ohhhhh, about six or seven hours today.... I managed to get about half way through the pile. This is strenuous work; not work for a 55 year old woman. I started out putting 20 shovelfuls into the wheelbarrow and that quickly decreased to 15 shovelfuls and by mid-way through the day, it was down to 10. This is some heavy heavy stuff.

But it looks really good and hopefully will keep the weeds under control. Regardless, I just love walkways, especially walkways that wind! But that's my goal when gardening anymore, building maintenance-free gardens. My husband used to work side by side with me but he can't anymore. After working 30 some years in the masonry trade and four surgeries later, he is limited in what he can, or should, do. He's not supposed to lift anything over 5 pounds or push or pull anything that is vibrating (like a lawn mower) ordo anything vigorous or strenuous. So our roles have changed these last couple years where I try the best I can to take care of all the strenuous and heavy work and he takes care of the lighter duty. I think I've accepted this change in roles better than he has. It's still extremely difficult for him to watch me do such hard labor. And I love him for that.

Mike canned fish today. Here's Kona, Sadie, and Dixie Cup assisting! Dixie isn't our's. She lives behind us and is the fattest little beagle girl I've ever seen. Somehow she manages to scoot her fat little body under our cyclone fence but we continue to be amazed at how. There can't be more than 4" to squeeze under! Dixie Cup.... what a funny little pork hound she is....

Today was an exhausting day. Think I'll go hop in the hot tub for a bit and soak my aching body....

2 comments:

homespun living said...

Hi Nancy,
You enquired about the barkcloth pear pincushion pictured on my blog. I do have a shop [www.fireflyfarm.freeservers.com] but don't have any of the pears listed at present. I would be happy to make you one as you see pictured, or I could e-mail you when I have added some to the shop. (Price is $10 + $3 shipping). Just let me know if you are interested. Thanks so much, Debbie

tracy @mamacreates said...

cute walkways! it'll be like the indi 500 for your dog-children :)