2019 Life Logs, Day 108: The Joy of Dirt
Date: Thursday, April 18, 2019
Weather: Overcast, Misty Turning to Rain in PM; High 60, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
My early morning PT appointment ended up to be not so early. I arrived at 8:30 am as I have for the past few weeks to find out that today’s appointment was at 10:30 am. If I had checked my calendar, I would have known that. But I was on automatic. I spent the time between doing a little garden shopping for Heather. Waquoit Feed and Seed is on my to and from PT, so I picked up a couple of dozen asparagus rootings and checked out another nursery on the way to see if they had strawberry plants. Too early for those, but they will be arriving in the next couple of weeks. After my PT session, I headed to Heather’s and found everyone outside working in the mist. Grammy Marti was fully dressed for the weather and was busy pruning bushes. Jed was pruning the big bushes with the electric trimmer and Heather was assembling the fir st of the raised beds. The boys were raking up the trimmings and Ollie was delivering that to the compost pile using his little tractor and wagon. I pitched in by digging up some irises from one area to another and then removing the sod to form a new herb garden. As I delivered the irises to the new area, Marti took over and replanted them. Heather got the first raised bed assembled
and Jed worked with her to bring wheel barrows of dirt from the driveway to dump in the new bed. Jonah and Sam left with a neighbor to go to a special activity and Ollie took advantage of their absence to play in the new dirt Jed had delivered to the boys’ digging area. He dug holes and laid in the dirt, poured dirt over his head . . . the joy of dirt.
While he was doing that, Heather put together another raised bed and Jed started filling that with dirt. Nine yards of garden soil had been delivered a few days ago and that huge pile in the driveway was the source of all this joyful dirt. Teamwork was the name of the game today and despite the uncooperative weather, lots of yard work was completed. I escaped during all of this and headed downtown to get a dump permit for Heather and Jed’s van and to do some shopping for the Easter Bunny. I was pleased that I was able to do some digging using my new knee, but I didn’t want to overdo it. So, volunteering for the trip into town was the perfect activity for me. Tomorrow’s plan is to do some basement clean-out and take the unwanted things to the dump—thus the reason for the trip into town to get the permit. When I returned from my downtown trip, it was seriously raining. But Marti was still pruning, Ollie was still rejoicing in the digging area, and Heather and Jed were will working to fill the second raised bed with dirt.
They were all soaking wet. I said my farewells and headed north to Mashpee to complete the shopping. Things we need for tomorrow night’s Seder were not available in Falmouth, but I did find them in Mashpee. Due to a Stop n’ Shop strike, we now have only one grocery store in Falmouth and it does not have all the things we need. So food shopping has become quite a time consuming experience. Mashpee has two grocery stores, but one is a Shop ‘n Shop, so the one grocery store in each town is always super crowded . . . especially with the holiday shopping. I got home around 6:30, fixed dinner, and settled in to watch the news of the day while completing my coffee table puzzle. Hurray! No more puzzles until winter approaches.
