Earth, Wind, and Fire

Managed to get some outside work done now that work has slowed down a bit. We've increased the size of the garden planters. So instead of last year's 4' x 4' box, we've added two boxes that are 4' x 10' each. So a good amount of extra space this year. I also had some help mixing all the dirt together and while it's a little lower than I want, it's at least a start. And no, it's not just "dirt." It's compost/manure, peat moss, and vermiculite. Although I ran out of peat moss for the one section and had to use regular potting soil. May go looking for some extra dirt in the back yard to help fill it up some.

Here's a view of the Earth portion of the post:

I also found the time to clean out the ditch up front. I had already raided it last fall for some leaves so I could use the leaf vac to grind them up a bit and add them to my compost. Little did I know that gumballs don't grind. Well, now I know. Which means I had to pretty much give up on the stuff in the ditch since it was loaded heavily with gumballs from the trees up there. Which means I decided to burn it all. I had no idea I had that much stuff in the ditch until I started cleaning it out. I thought things were pretty clean already but after nearly 20 bucket loads in the tractor and a 5 foot high pile on the burn pit, I realized I underestimated how much crap was there.

Here's the end result of the Fire:

Finally, I had to cut down some trees on my neighbor's property since he didn't seem to be in a big rush to do it. The heavy snow this winter bowed them over and a few times they were hanging low enough in the street to impede traffic. Since I was tired of having them hanging there just waiting to fall into the road and crush my mailbox, I just went over and chopped them down. It also gave me a chance to teach the kids a bit about using a hatchet and axe and what they needed to do to stay safe. William did pretty good since he wasn't quite strong enough to swing the hatchet. Elizabeth though was a little scary when she started swinging like a mad woman at the tree. Hopefully I caught them early enough to at least keep them semi safe around an axe.

Finally, here's the what the Wind (and snow) forced me to do (not that I minded):