osprey94's Blog

Well, the new deck bed is in place, mostly. I still need to add a leeetle more topsoil in a few areas and edge a little between the soil and the lawn, and I'm ready to plant. I made it so wide that I'm going to have to use a board to stand on while I plant so my weight's distributed better. Thanks again, Sweetlebee, for helping me along in this process. I'm such a newbie, it's pretty pitiful.  The comments were so right. 42 cubic yards was WAY too much. Anne Lovejoy in her books recommends a VERY thick mounded bed and I was going by those calculations, plus I must've made some sort of mathematical miscalculation. I ended getting about 25 cubic yards of topsoil and it was, as you'll see, more than enough. And, it was only (ha! only) $480 or so.

Today as I was tearing the muddy lawn up with the tractor, carting soil from the pile to the site, I realized I was pretty low on gas. I stopped, examined the THREE gas cans D has and decided to call him instead of guess which one was the correct gas (could've been mixed gas/oil for the chainsaw, could've been diesel, could've been regular, who knows!). He didn't answer his cell, so I decided to be independent and handle it myself so I grabbed a can, figuring we had the right kind for the tractor on hand and filled 'er up! Well, a few minutes of driving it around and it just stopped working. I knew deep down I'd put the wrong gas in it, but I didn't want to admit it. Finally I called D and asked him if stalling might have anything to do with putting gas in the thing. Well, he shared (in a calm, collected way) that gas I'd used? It was "NOT DIESEL! THAT TRACTOR TAKES DIESEL!" And I believe he also said "OH MY GOD, CALL THE TRACTOR PLACE RIGHT NOW!" I fervently wished I didn't have to admit this to the manly guys at the tractor dealership (who I know already think I'm a dingy city girl when I call with my ridiculous tractor questions), but I had to do it. They were nice and waited to laugh at me until I hung up, I'm sure. They said that it wasn't a big deal, but they would have to drain the gas out and change the filters. So, now I've gotta wait for them to pick the thing up and service it AND drop it back off again before I can keep working on whittling away at the topsoil pile.

So...here it is...ta daaaaa!

From the front - makes the bed look really skinny, but it's NOT.

And, here's how much soil I have left over!

And, see that strange brightness in the pictures? That's sunshine. I know, I know, it's rare, but that really is sunshine! And it lasted all of 5 minutes before the clouds came in AGAIN. I'm anticipating some more hail and a snow shower before the next showing.