Sore Muscles

Friday and yesterday Sailor and I worked on the yard. We are making planters on our huge concrete back yard patio. It used to be a basketball court "back in the day" when we had some interested kids, but it hasn't been for a very long time. Ever since S2 was jumping on the new trampoline and decided to slam dunk a pretend basket ball and broke the hoop. It hung there for years, and no one played again. You can see the basketball pole (sans backboard) on the very left of the picture.

Anyway the very vast, reflective mass of concrete always got most of the sun in the summertime, and for what? It collected dirt, leaves, junk and reflected brightness into my window, along with the backboard and would give me migraine headaches. This year we decided to make raised beds there.
Earlier this spring we purchased 4 pallets decorative cinder block and laid them out on the patio in somewhat of a plan.

If you look at the picture, you will see three benches (the fourth to the right of the edge of the picture) and two planters. The planter and two right benches were there when we moved here and to the left of the patio was a huge sacrificial alter. Well, it really was an abandoned barbecue thing which had been turned into a trash incinerator by the last owners. We tore it down and Sailor fashioned another planter and two more benches to mirror the existing ones.

Anyway, in his spare time, Sailor has been mortaring this first planter, and yesterday he spent his day tilling the back garden and hauling dirt to this planter. For the top 6 inches we then used the principles prescribed in the Square Foot Gardening Site to make Mel's special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite.

Now this planter is ready to plant. I have planted three flats of petunias along the edges of the triangle planters. I got a marigold plant from church for mother's day which is planted there, and a bunch of marigold seeds. I also did a bunch of cleaning in the front yard. Clean-up day is next Saturday where the city will haul away anything you put on the curb. So I started a pile. Yea.

The last two nights we have found muscles we didn't know existed. It is a great thing to spring clean!

Today a very large bird landed on our hummingbird feeder. He sat there and sipped the nectar for a while. We got a picture.