Sigh.
It's more than it looks.
This spring, Ben had mentioned how much he hated the river rock around the house, and, last fall, our home inspector suggested that we raise the soil level around our house and grade it away for water drainage. I filed these thoughts in the "it would be nice to get to someday/after the important stuff is done" folder, since pulling rock, building soil, grading soil, and mulching the new beds is no weekend project. In my wild race to eliminate lawn, I thought I would leave the rock beds alone, since - of course - rocks are not lawn.
Well,
here we are; in our first year at the house, we are pulling rock, building soil, grading, and re-mulching the perimeter of the house. I have reasons, but they're complicated, not worth the explanation. It's a slow, backbreaking, unrewarding task, and, one month later, we aren't even close to being done.
I don't really even want to write about it. It's like a specter casting shadows on my mind, seeding paranoid thoughts about neighborhood scorn, city citations, and general trashiness.
The fruit of this trial will be, quite literally, fruit: I mean, fruit, some herbs, some wafting wildflowers, and asparagus, God willing. I've been able to give my blueberries a blanket of pine needles, and to dig a bed for asparagus, and I have room enough to re-site my rhubarb as a foundation screen (if it survives). My forsythia has a new and happier home and I moved some hostas and daylilies (I found daylilies, they were hiding) to where they can be seen.
Now I just have to finish.
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