Six months ago, by buddy Iggy and his wife had a detached garage and a large tree, both in their back yard. During a late winter storm, the tree and the garage came together.

The remains of the garage and the tree are gone now, and a new garage has been built. It's differently sized and located, because of changes in zoning laws. With no big tree, their back yard has a lot more sun. So Iggy wanted to put down soil where the old garage foundation was, and Iggy's wife wanted raised-bed gardens.

That's where I came in. As a favor, yesterday I came over and helped Iggy move a couple of cubic yards of fresh topsoil from the pile on his driveway where the dump truck left it, to an even layer over the back yard. Three of us (Iggy, me, and another buddy named Austin) did a pretty good job of trucking all that soil around using a wheelbarrow that could really use a new tire.

After the earthmoving was over, we went to a hardware store and picked up a bunch of lumber for the beds. I was on cut duty, using a sawsall because that's all we had. My cuts were pretty rough, as the boss (Iggy) figured this was all going into a garden and once you pile dirt in it, no one will notice if the beds aren't exactly square. It's not like his yard was level anyway, even after we were done raking out the soil.

Sadly, once we got all the wood cut, the plan was changed to make the beds narrower. So I had to repeat all my cuts. Iggy's got a fire-pit, so all those extra lumber scraps will just get turned into fuel. Anyway, with the wood properly sized, we started assembly. "Started" being the operative word, as we discovered that the fasteners on-hand were not as suitable as the boss had thought. It was dinner time, so we called it a day. Iggy can put them together by himself later, the heavy lifting is done. Well, except for putting dirt into the beds once they are in place. I may get another call.

I collected my wages from the paymaster: one 12" sub and a large iced tea.

Today, my plans to go for a bike ride came to a premature end. I've been doing enough biking this year to get a tan, or at least the bare hint of melanin that counts as a tan for my pale skin. But biking gives one some particular tan-lines. Most importantly to our story, I always wear a helmet when biking. But yesterday I certainly saw no need to wear a helmet while shoveling dirt all afternoon under the Buffalo sun. Now, when I was a younger man this would not have been a problem. But as I've continued to get smarter, my brain has expanded, and much more of my head is now exposed to the elements, if you catch my drift. The exposed portions are now a lovely shade of pink, and attempting to put on a helmet was rather unpleasant. I expect it'll heal in a day or two, but for now I will be doing bare-headed activities.

Posted by: Boviate at 10:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 544 words, total size 3 kb.