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Location: Longview, Washington, United States

I live in a small town in Washington State, USA, with my wife, two sons, two dogs, a cat, and family nearby. I work at the local community college as an I.T. Specialist. In March of '02, we bought a 70-some year old house that needed a lot of work. When I'm not working on the house, I like to throw pots, be outside, and read a lot.

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Sunday, May 01, 2005

Full Day Outside

I am the proud owner of many sore spots and tired muscles. We awoke at 7 AM which is reasonably early for us on a Sunday. By 7:45 I was breakfasted, done with chores, and outside. The kid was with me in the backpack. We walked the dogs and then started in on the outside work. I pulled a lot of weeds, hauled water, planted seedlings, filled planter boxes, etc. until about 10:30 AM when I realized that I'd been doing squats and deep knee bends for two and a half hours with a 30 pound kid on my back who was alternately cooing, yelling, singing and hissing in my ear, while pounding on the back of my head, putting his fingers in my ears, nose and elsewhere and occasionally gifting the back of my head with watery sneezes. In short, it was nap time, or so we hoped. I deposited him inside and popped over next door to check on my garden before starting in on the blackberries.

Once over there I determined that the soil had dried out enough for tilling. I got the whole thing (about .75 of an acre) tilled up and all the upper beds planted with peas, carrots, three kinds of lettuce, potatoes, and zukes - everything but the beans. Today I found a use for those particle board shelving units we all probably have several of in the garage. I turned them on their side on the ground and made them into planter boxes. With the exception of a break for lunch soup and a NWN siesta, I worked on the garden until 4:30, took a few half-hearted stabs at the blackberries, and then broke for dinner with the whole family - including some who were visiting for the day from out of town.

As we ate, a thunderstorm rolled in that rattled the picture windows at my parents place harder than I can ever remember. I thought one might actually pop loose. Dogs and toddlers went nuts, the heavens opened up, and I was sure glad I decided to push through and get the tilling done today.


In the garden...

posted by Scott in Washington at 8:15 PM |

4 comment(s):

  • It is looking really nice, what are the stakes for on the top of the photo and was this taken am or afternoon. The thunder strom was great, we love to open up all the windows and listen. The lightening was really loud so every thing got turn off. We were hit by lightening two years ago and lost a lot of appliances even though we were protected at every outlet. It came right through our electic fence and into the house, even knocked a few nails out of the walls. We came home and did not know what had happened but found out really quick from all the phone calls and people arriving to see if we had survived the strike, I guess it was pretty impressive of a hit. It had also hit a fir in the back yard and went through the top and out the bottom, we fell the tree this last year and you could follow the strike...blew the bark right off.
    Happy gradening and playing with your new toy....

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/02/2005 10:51:00 AM  

  • i can so relate to the 30lb toddler in the backpack. had a good giggle!

    By Blogger Deb, at 5/02/2005 11:15:00 AM  

  • The crossed bamboo stakes are there to discourage the dogs from running across the beds. I've been threatening to sharpen them and point them outward if any more snow pea plants get crushed. The vertical ones are for the peas to climb.

    The photo was taken right before lunch.

    By Blogger Scott in Washington, at 5/02/2005 02:35:00 PM  

  • So how are the Thomas toting muscles this am? That is a really good work out, you'll have to do that while you run :)
    The sun is going to be great for the garden, the afternoon sun swings around perfect. Does it hit the other side in the afternoon also. Your dog solution might be a mini wire fence that carries an electric shock, my dogs for some reason never bothered the garden, but yours must be in a main path. My pest were the bunnies and deer which why now it is fenced in nice and high with a brick boarder to keep out the bunnies.
    Are your snow peas up..I am so ready to plant just need to work the soil...site is still to wet right now....off to plant..see ya

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/03/2005 07:44:00 AM  

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