whadda weekend!

I slept wrong on Thursday (wrong meaning in that old horrible bed I have instead of on the floor) and woke up Friday with a pain in the back of my shoulder. Bossman sent me home an hour early, after he learned I had been quiet about the pain all day. Physical labor usually helps work it out so I took that extra hour of time to mow the front lawn, the side yard, and to pickax the high spots that those nasty gophers createdin the backyard. I figured if I could level out the backyard a bit, it would make it easier for John to mow.

Saturday I got up early and drove to Gilroy for the monthly Women's Work Day. I was a few minutes late, but we enjoyed fresh pineapple and orange-glazed cinnamon rolls before beginning the project. J's plan was to take the broken concrete pieces from her old patio and create a 'rock wall' around a plant bed that she had. The plant bed has an above ground filter pond, that she uses water plants in to filter her fish pond that is on the other side of the yard. The dirt around this filter pond always runs down and her plantings never stay put. Her hubby bought us some mortar while we laid out the plan and got to work. First we uprooted the grape hyacinth as she didn't want to lose those. Then we removed the old small rocks that had sunk in to the ground. We laid out the lines of the rock wall with flour, changed it, changed it again, until we finally agreed on the lines and the roundness. Less like a "urinal" and more like a plant bed. We started choosing the concrete pieces we wanted to use and had a dry run. We laid out the bottom layer of broken concrete, switched some pieces here and there until we got what we were looking for, then mixed the mortar. We lifted each concrete, splat down some mortar, put the concrete back and wiggle it around to set it in, move to the next concrete. After the first layer we took a lunch break, then dry fit and set in mortar the 2nd layer. While we waited for that to dry we had limeaid and eventually went home. J will do the 3rd layer later this week.


Sunday we went to Sears to have bf's picture taken for the newsletter at his new job, then I went to OSH to get a big bag of soil and a bigger bag of redwood compost. It was so hot, I watered early in the morning and my transplants from J weren't doing well. Today she told me they will recover fine, so I hope the heat goes away soon and lets them recoop. Then I got our old broken trashcan and planted some organic potatoes. Soon I should be able to plant my experimental cotton, though I have NO idea where I will end up planting it in the ground. Below is the before and after of the rock wall. In the little pockets, she will plant succulents and whatnots.


The temps are back up to 90* + this weekend and today (Monday) and they are supposed to go back down, again, tomorrow. We shall see.