Dirty Work

There's something icky going around. I believe it to be a stomach bug and it's taken its toll on our household. I got sick Sunday afternoon and was feeling better Monday morning and then Sean came down with it Monday afternoon. He's feeling better tonight so it seems to be only a 24 hour bug, thankfully. I'm just waiting for it to hit the kids. I sure hope it doesn't.

Before Sean and I got sick this weekend we got quite a bit accomplished. I worked on the garden pretty much all day Saturday (of course when I wasn't on baby duty). I hauled about 2000 pounds worth of composted horse manure out to the garden which wasn't very easy. We've talked about buying a garden trailer for the tractor but just don't want to shell out the money for something we aren't sure we'd get much use out of. Turns out it would have come in handy for this task. I ended up using our garden cart (four wheeled pull cart) with an empty Rubbermaid stock tank on top of it. I think each load was around 500 pounds. I certainly got my workout pulling that thing around. Wesley, of course, had a ball riding on top of the full cart of manure. He would sit up there with a big smile on his face while holding my shovel as I pulled it over to the garden. I got two rows planted with things that can generally hold up to a little frost: broccoli, carrots, onions and some flowers. I'm holding out on planting the rest until the first week on May, which will be corn, beans, zucchini, squash and tomatoes. I thought it might be neat to watch the garden grow, so here is week one (pretty much just dirt, the orange flags represent rows):



I've been wanting to redo the front of the horse corral for awhile now and we started it this weekend. When the pool was removed, the deck around it was also taken out. That left us with a whole ton of pressure treated lumber. Two hundred 2X6 boards to be exact. Not knowing what to do with all this wood Sean stacked it up for later use (or maybe to give away on Craigslist?). I knew uses would eventually come up and so the horse fence is now being revamped with it. It will look great when it's finished. And now we can forever remove the unsightly welded wire fence and just leave a slatted board fence.



The happy kissing inhabitants of the corral


Wesley ran around entertaining himself the whole time we were working outside. He's hit an age when we all go outside and do our own thing. He still needs supervision but he's happy to be involved in his own exploring. Mostly this exploring involves getting into anything and everything in the shop (much to Sean's dismay). This involves collecting every tool he can get his hands on. If Sean had a hard time finding his tools before, well now it's pretty much hopeless. Wesley has also taken to collecting screws and bolts found throughout the shop. He hoards them and will place them in little piles. For instance, this pile was found on the seat of his wagon.



He really has fun playing with Dad in the shop.


I hope everyone is having a nice, sick-free week!