Speaking of recovery (no I am not joining AA although I’m really not interested in wine today) these past few days have kicked my ass… and my arms… and my legs… and my back… but it appears my body is either getting used to the abuse or simply gone numb.  I have overexerted and no relief appears to be in sight.  Dummy. 

Friday we went out to the lake and spent the day working on the cabin.  I cleaned out the Bluebird Hilton (the bus) so we’ll have a place to sleep until la cabina is livable, we finished stapling and taping the vapour barrier in the loft and began to put the plywood up for the interior walls.  There is no power out there so everything we did had to be done by hand or with cordless tools so it’s a fairly slow and laborious process.  I spent the majority of the afternoon painting.  I don’t think I mentioned what a wicked deal I got on the paint.  A client of mine and her husband have a building supplies store and since she knew I was in the market for some paint she mentioned to me that occasionally they have mistints that they sell cheap.  I told her I was looking for a light blue and if she ever had anything even close to let me know.  She called me last week to say they had four gallons of a pale blue mistint and I should check it out.  The color was exactly what I was looking for so I bought all four gallons for $40.  That my friends is what real networking is all about. 

Have I mentioned I enjoy painting?  It’s another one of those gardening-like tasks that brings me peace and allows me to see the fruits of my labour.  We were completely exhausted by the time we got home and showered.  We didn’t even have enough energy to cook supper so I had Cheerios and he had a sandwich.  We were asleep by 9PM which naturally meant we were awake with the birds by 6 the next morning.  

Saturday was (finally) sunny and (finally) warm so we got busy outside.  When I say we got busy I mean we were productive not re-productive.  My husband did some landscaping in the front yard while I planted and transplanted and made dirt.  Yes, I have to make my own dirt.  Our ‘topsoil’ is that fine layer of dust on top of the rocks and not even weeds grow in that.  Years ago we bought two loads of ‘topsoil’ that was really more clay than soil so I mix that with some peat moss, sand, sawdust, compost and the manure that my neighbors brought me.  I have the best neighbors in the world, they give me shit and I dig it. 

I really have to give a shout out to my best friend at this point because if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t get anything done around my yard.  Who is my best friend?  My wheelbarrow of course, I call him Clyde as in Clyde Barrow which together makes us…

wait for it…

Benny and Clyde.  

As if hauling, mixing, planting, weeding and transplanting wasn’t enough to do for the day, I felt the need to start a new garden project as well.  During one of my geeky garden girl internet searches I discovered a fun use for old tires.  I thought the process looked easy enough so I wandered up to my parent’s (junk) yard and found some (piles of) old tires.  I asked dad if I could take a few and he said that was fine but he had to make sure I wasn’t taking ‘good’ ones.  Can you hear my eyes rolling?  There isn’t a good… anything in all of that junk.  When my parents die my inheritance is going to cost me money.  Sure, my brother’s and I will get the land but we’ll have to pay someone to haul away all of that scrap metal and old machinery and dead dump truck and bits and pieces of crap and garbage that my father can’t bear to part with.    

a tiring project

I will spare (get it?) you the details and the how-to’s, there are some great sites that step it all out far better than I could.  I do however want to say that while I have never wrestled a Grizzly bear I would guess that trying to turn a truck tire inside out is about the same degree of difficulty and pain.  I have the bruises to prove it.  That said, by the time we got to the third one we were either getting stronger or the tires were getting weaker.  When we were finished I looked like I’d put in a double shift in a mechanics shop, I was filthy from the eyebrows down and I was completely…

wait for it…

tired.  

Sunday I went in search of something else to do.  I walked up to the folks (junk) yard again to see what I could rescue/recycle for potential planting purposes.  There in the long grass I found a rusted headboard and footboard.  I dragged them over to my dad and told him I was taking them.  “I’m collecting my inheritance, one piece of garbage at a time.”  I told him.  “The boys can deal with the rest of your crap.”  To which my father scowled and grumbled “If all of the stuff around here is no good, why do you keep taking it?”  

He had a point.  Thanks dad.

I sanded and spray painted the old metal and then I gathered a bunch of scrap wood  to build a frame.  I kept nailing 2×4’s around the perimeter until I had the depth I wanted but when I was finished I didn’t like the way the big box looked on the outside.  It wasn’t pretty and it looked like every other raised bed in my yard.  Once again I trudged up the road to see what else I could scavenge.  My dad has a small sawmill where he cuts logs into lumber and the edge strips that are sawn off the logs are called “slabs”… these are the bits with the bark still on them.  I found a few slabs that I thought might work and Clyde and I hauled them home and I used them to finish the outside of my flower bed so that the entire thing looks (to me at least) like it is made of logs.  My boy thinks it’s kind of tacky but I think it’s adorable… or at least it will be once I figure out what I want to plant in it.  

flower bed