some friends in a local small town nearby keep me in
mind when they have extra stuff from making wood for
their wood burner... the other day i finish my chores
for the morning and am just sitting down after getting
cleaned up and they give me a ring saying they have
some bags of stuff. after a few moments to establish
that i'm not getting back up for anything short of
the house being on fire or an acute digestive attack
or Mom needing immediate attention or someone knocking
on the door... ah, where was i? oh yea, so after a
few moments i'm glad to know they aren't coming out
right away and i can continue my contemplation of the
flowers and clouds or perhaps the insides of my eye-lids
(was i snoring? i'm pretty sure i was last night.) for
at least a few hours...

what magic gifts were they bringing? bark off trees
about 7 bags worth, but then he said he could bring more
if i wanted. wanted!? i was drooling. some of the
bark he's brought me before makes excellent edges around
raised beds (protects them from the rains washing them
down, gives bugs, worms, snakes, froggies, etc. places to
hide, covers up weeds, ... eventually turns into wonderful
black topsoil.

we don't have garage space for the bags. when he
drops them off (i love people who deliver!) i get the
wheelbarrow and move them off to where they are ending
up.

it just so happened that at the bottom of the north
garden there's a low spot that collects both weeds and
the overflow from the rains and i had already put down a
layer of cardboard and that was being held in place with
some rocks (we likes rocks we do). i'd just put it down
two days ago. like i knew... smothering is a great
way to weed an area. then along the north edge of
the north garden was some topsoil that i'd added wood
chips on top of for a few years so it was coming along
nicely and was calling out for being moved "uphill" into
the north garden proper, so i excavated that and moved a
few crocuses and daffodils (too wet there can't believe
they survived as long as they did) and so after moving
the bags of bark many of the paper bags don't hold up
well to being used to move such chunks. after the
excavating is done along the edge then the bags go down
in a few layers and then the bark gets dumped on top.
or as some would say here "strategically placed to cover
up the bags and giving a neat and orderly appearance." so
the raccoons can come and tear it up looking for goodies
some night...

even more fun, some leaves are mixed in with the bark
and small pieces of wood too. as i'm dumping this stuff
out i'm thinking "WORM FOOD!" and so now it is all in
place, looks like i planned it this way. and best of all
in a few years i can move the chunks of bark aside in a
few moments and find some fresh made topsoil from cardboard,
leaves, smothered weeds, worms and perhaps some interesting
fungi. there's usually some moss or lichens.

i have to write those friends a note of thanks.

perfect timing on the rain last night too.


songbird