Dirt

When I was young, my dad always had random projects to keep himself (and the rest of us) busy. I'd look at a pile of dirt like the one above and think, oh no, some useless dirt to move to some corner of the yard for some purpose or other.

Well, now I'm the dad. Since my kid is too young to move much dirt, I get to enjoy the majority of these projects on my own.

Our back yard was quite low when we bought the place last year, and this spring it predictably held a lot of water for a long time. We decided to build it up and make a bigger, friendlier, more level lawn. So out came a bunch of garden beds and in went a bunch of dirt. Lots of dirt.

This was a big load. A hefty 22 yards of nice clean soil. Fortunately the stuff was pretty light and it didn't get rained on, so my wheelbarrow and I got to work. Of course Lily helped...

...when she wasn't being queen of her mountain. She was a hit with the neighbours.

I did get some spousal support, which was nice. Most of my friends decided I was nuts for not renting a machine to do the hauling, but I rather needed the exercise. Once the pile was done, we came to the realization that the yard wasn't quite as high as we wanted.

YAY, MORE DIRT!

The second load was considerably bigger, and we somehow found room in the yard (plus top-dressing where it wasn't so low) for all of it. I got a bit more help with this pile, from friends/neighbours.

A few yards of soil went into these nice cedar garden boxes I built for the girls (they still need edge seating). Carrie had wanted a raised garden for some veggies and herbs. We'll see if they're high enough to keep out the rabbits.

Anyway, the yard's done, the seed's in, and we're seeing a healthy green haze over our lawn a week in. Looking good so far.

A week before the dirt entered our lives, Carrie was off to Geneva for work. Lily and I headed down to visit family. We had a good time, except I got rather sick, hacking up lungs and whatnot. We stayed a few days before heading home, having gotten in some quality geocaching and quail-cuddling.

We spend a few days at home convalescing (on my part), and then found Carrie back after her week away. She gets to repeat the trip in early August.

At one point with a mountain of dirt in the driveway, there was one tiny hiccup when after eating out at a taco place, I ended up in excruciating pain one evening. I managed to thrash around until 3am, when I finally agreed to a trip to the hospital, convinced my appendix had given up on me; we woke up Lily and headed out. After some very diligent attention initially, we hung around for a few hours waiting for a doctor. Somehow the power of time healed what ailed me, and I tried to leave; magically, the doctor appeared shortly after and decided it was probably something I ate. So, back home and in bed by 6:30, and up at 11 to shovel some more! I was almost disappointed that they didn't take my appendix, if only to see some fruits of my inconvenient ER visit. But on the bright side, I was able to shovel dirt instead of being bedridden.

Last weekend was Ottawa Race Weekend. Race officials were ready to cancel races because of the extreme heat (temps in the 30s). In the end, they just changed some start times to avoid the hottest times of day. We both ran the 10km race, as did a few friends. Just as I started my race, it started raining. Hard. Like drenched in no time at all. I imagine more than a few phones and iPods of ill-prepared runners got ruined. It would have been nice if the rain had started 10 minutes in, when we would have been overheating, but it was welcome all the same and cooled the day down considerably. All in all, another successful race. Even if I got out and trained only twice. I should probably change my strategy next year when I'm old and 40.