…when you have constructive labor to do?
Featured Image: Gardens #1, #2, #3, and #8 (fallow, potato towers, carrots family veggies and herbs, and cole crops and brassicas).
The weather forecast for today (and all week, for that matter) was rain, possibly coming with thunderstorms. When I knocked off for the day yesterday, I didn’t expect to get much more done on the “pretty” garden walls. The storm blew in at about 10pm last night and passed out of the area sometime between 4am and 7am; once again, the weather forecasters failed to predict the speed at which storms move through here.
In its wake, however, the storm left a smothering blanket of humidity: scarcely below 70%, most of the day has been 80% or higher. Everything was drenched when I first contemplated going out at 8am, so I decided to wait until the sun had dried things out a bit and hope that some of the humidity would bake off and blow away. In the meantime, breakfast and a movie (today being a Federal holiday, I didn’t have work).
After the movie, I decided it wasn’t going to get any better outside and got started. I completed the blocks and sides for the 6 remaining annual veggie gardens over the course of about 3 hours. The hardware store associate thought I was nuts for getting a handsaw to cut my pressure treated lumber, but the handsaw is working better (i.e., faster and more reliably) than my extremely cheap circular saw which can’t get through more than about 4-5″ of the PT lumber before the motor bogs down. I can cut a 2″x8″ board in about 45 seconds with the handsaw; in fact, it takes longer to get the board up on the sawhorses, clamped down, and the line marked where I need to cut.
It’s a great workout: you’ve got your weight-lifting (moving the boards); sort of a modified pushup/pull-up routine (handling the saw); hand exercises (I’ve got quick-grip bar clamps that you squeeze a handle to tighten them for clamping the boards to the sawhorses); squats (from lifting/lowering the boards and wheelbarrow); and cardio (walking the blocks and boards from the front yard to the back). And at the end of the workout, you have something to show for it besides the sweat on your brow!
Gardens #4 and #5 (salad greens and grains, respectively), boxed in.
While I worked, Squeak sought for, but did not find, mice or voles. Too bad she wasn’t following me to the garden beds in the back yard. I kicked up two or three while setting the blocks and boards in place.