We Have Dirt!!!

It has been a while since my last post.  Things here have been bustling!  It is so hard to fit this farm into our standard life of homeschooling, errands and activities.  Both of my kids are at that age where they are involved in everything and can't drive themselves yet.  So, life ends up being a "Hurry up and wait" type thing.  I wouldn't change it for the world!  Ok, maybe I WOULD cut back some.  I want to just simplify.

Back to the dirt!  My nephews came down from Sacramento and helped us out.  We found out kinda last minute that they would be coming so we had to scramble to get dirt for them to fill our new planter boxes.  Many of the local cities offer free dirt to their residents.  Unfortunately, ours doesn't.  I had arranged to meet up with a friend in a neighboring city to get the compost there - only to find that I could only have 1 square foot!  Um....that's not quite going to work for me.  So I start looking at other cities and the only ones that had unlimited compost weren't open until the end of March and we were sitting in the middle of February! 

Thankfully, a local mushroom company offered free compost to city residents.  Since it was where I grew up, they let me have it. :)  I was so relieved.  I rented a U-Haul pick up and went down to get it.  What an adventure!  Now, if you have never driven past a mushroom farm, you just haven't lived.  The aroma is similar to that of a dairy farm.  Heaping piles of fresh manure steaming in the sunshine all watered down and fermenting.  Oh lovely.  My kids were NOT amused!  We pull around back and after some Spanish/English/hand gesture communication with the guys, they take a big scoop with their tractor and dump it into the back of the pick up.  It was like being in an earthquake and was kinda fun!  Compost fell on the roof, the windshield and filled up the back of the truck.  It was then that I remembered that my mud boots were still back there for when I had to get out of the truck....OOPS!  The kids and I tied a tarp over the whole thing.  Brendan got to show off his new Boy Scout knots and we all got to walk through the mud...oh how I wish I had my boots!

We got the load home and started to unload.  As you can see, it was quite a job!  It took us about 3 hours to get the whole thing emptied.  The compost was a bit...um...riper than I had wanted.  Compost is suppose to season and break down.  We were stepping through manure.  I was so afraid that the kids would balk at this and really give me a hard time about working in it.  They did great though!  They got used to the smell even!  We emptied the whole truck in the driveway and returned it just in time.

Getting the topsoil was an adventure as well - though not as fun.  My wonderful husband called around and it wasn't until Saturday that we got someone to come deliver free dirt.  We had to pay for delivery, but hey, we didn't have to shovel it or pay for it!  What was suppose to be top soil is just dirt with rocks and debris.  Oh well.  You get what you pay for!   At this point, my nephews were here and ready to work. 

Step one, we lined the bottom of the planters with cardboard - which means we got to go dumpster diving!  It started to sprinkle while we were diving through dumpsters.  Oh the fun!

Next we hauled dirt.  My nephews, Kyle and Kevin, did an amazing job hauling one layer of compost followed by one layer of dirt.  Lots of loads! 

We all helped pulling rocks and debris from the dirt.   For every one we got, 5 more went into the planters.  There was just no way to get it all.  The kids worked tirelessly with Kyle and Kevin all day and into Sunday smoothing out the soil as they dumped load after load.  I cooked a big dinner and fresh sourdough bread to send home with the boys.  It was a great weekend and we got the planters in thanks to family.  It looks like this farm thing is really going to happen!