Fixing a hole

Spent the day spending my back putting in three rhododendrons, sweeping off the roof (to clear the gutters), cutting some wood pieces for my wife's crafts, trimming off the bottom of the shed door, and tossing some dirt around.

The good news is that, even though we had massive roots to cut through, digging the holes for the rhodies we were surprised to see that out good dirt depth is now three to six inches. This is back in among the trees, which we've turned into a large area compost pile for leaves (we have a fenced in area for the rest). In the fall we haul the leaves to the back and spread them out adding in some compost starter. We've also transplanted worms (which we none of when we moved in) and other little animals that work on crewing up dirt. Most of our "soil" is clay, and I mean the type you could probably make into pots (we have a lot of brown, but there are good patches of blue clay out there). When we moved in the good dirt depth was about half an inch. Of course it was a bitch cutting through the root mass and there were plenty of trout lilly bulbs tossed aside.

With the cutting, I had enough scrap wood to cut all the pieces from. I also had all the right tools to get the job done. For woodworking advice, sandpaper isn't as good as planing and a simple block plane is good enough for most applications. I also had the right tools to cut the bottom of the door, but I didn't use them. I should have removed the door, laid on a table and used the circular saw or planed it down, or used the reciprocating saw on it while it hung on the hinges, but I used the jigsaw because I had it out.

Tossing the dirt around was just an ongoing project moving the eight yards we had delivered two weeks ago.

So there was a lot of digging below grade, twisting in strange ways, and hauling loads. And now my back is telling me I over did it. Hope you had a better weekend.