What Lies Below

Late this afternoon I took it into my head to take advantage of the fine weather and go out and mulch up some of the leaves on the vegetable garden beds.

Didn't take long to run the lawn mower over the ones on the quadrant closest to the house. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, and there might be wind, so it made sense to dig them into the soil right away.

Hmm. I do my math and each of those beds is around 50 square feet. Should have taken me forty-five minutes tops to fork the one over. Instead, thanks to opportunistic maple tree roots and other subterranean obstacles, it took more like two hours. Or more.

I suppose it only stands to reason that my biggest garden prep challenge each spring should be dealing with the tree roots fingering their way into the vegetable beds. After all, that's where the food and water are.

All right, fine, O trees. Do what you will during the summer, but if I find you past the cobblestone path when I'm digging the garden in March or April, you're getting your rooty fingers smacked. Or clipped, actually.

I tend to forget the tree roots. Silly of me; I have to deal with them every year. What I shouldn't have had to expect is this:

No, that's not a sunken tombstone. It's half a concrete paver that matches a lot of other concrete pavers I found in this part of the yard when I was first prepping the vegetable garden five years ago. What I don't understand is why I didn't find it before. Hey, haven't I been forking the soil here over every year?

Or maybe not. Maybe the volunteer lettuce last year and the biannual Brussels sprouts a year or two before that kept the fork out of this part of the garden.

Well, the paver's out now, and that has to be an improvement.

And this bed is forked, and some further leaf mulching was completed on the one opposite it.

It'd be jolly to get all four beds done soon. Maybe this year I'll be in time to plant some peas.

Working on the Edge

My new Neuton cordless electric lawn mower with the edger/trimmer attachment came on Tuesday.

Wednesday I put it together and mowed the lawn. Yesterday, I read the instructions (yes, really!) and found out how the edger/trimmer works. But with the thunderstorm we had yesterday, I had to wait till today to try it out.

Started with the backyard path, which was pretty overgrown. What kind of a line I could get?

Better than with the string trimmer I once borrowed from a neighbor.

Even so, in some places, oops!

Then, around to the front.

Uncovered the brick edging I'd forgot I had along the walkway to the front door.

Then I tackled the public sidewalk. Can't say how this mower-attached edger compares overall to your typical hand-held string trimmer on that job. That one time time with my neighbor's machine, I got so annoyed at not being able to keep the line on the back walkway even, I gave up and did the front sidewalk with my dad's old yard knife, by hand.

Wish I could say my new edger cut through all the overhanging turf in one pass, but nothing doing. I suppose it's no surprise-- the string only extends out 3" or 4" at the most, and in some places the turf, including grass, was 6" thick.

So my dad's old yard knife (a cut-off and sharpened stainless steel dinner knife) batted cleanup again.

Then there was the everlasting issue of having the string break and having to undo the spool housing and find the end and poke it through the little hole then put it all back together again . . . Yeah, par for the course for string trimmers, but don't you think they'd figure out some way that wouldn't be necessary all the time?

Eight hours, several new calluses, a bodyful of sore muscles, and a sunburn later, I was finally sweeping up the last of the mess.

And I look at this job and I think, "Eight hours? For what?"

For a job that's Just Supposed to Be Done, that's what. It's not exciting or sexy like pulling the carpet off the stairs and finding good hardwood underneath or laying tile with perfect grout joints. Edging the sidewalk is like emptying the dishwasher or doing the laundry. You get no kudos or credit if you do it; in fact, you're a lazy slob if you don't. There's even a local borough ordinance requiring homeowners to keep the grass and so on off the public footpath. Don't wait for applause, just Get It Done, and about damn time, too.

And before you know it, it'll be time to do it again.

I've got some Dutch ancestry in the usual American mix, and something in me still admires the industrious huisvrouw of old who was out scrubbing her doorstep at 7:00 o'clock every morning. I still sometimes wish I could be that on top of everyday housekeeping and yard care chores. But it ain't gonna happen.

So big boring routine jobs like edging the sidewalk wait for some momentous event, like company coming or the purchase of a new power tool or God forbid, a citation from the local authority. I fear my Dutch great-great-great-great-grandmother would be sadly disappointed in me.

Though if she could see me using the new shop vac to sweep the dust off the sidewalk, I think she'd commend my ingenuity. So efficient. And very effective.