I totally blame this on Robin. I’d already started to build the first backyard bed from treated lumber—and then I went to her house, and saw her raised beds made from cement blocks. Much easier to build, move around, reconfigure, whatever. Plus, these blocks are cheap.

So, today I bought the first dozen blocks, and put in this trial bed. It went pretty quickly, even with all the levelling I did with sand. My hands are sore as hell, but I wasn’t wearing gloves for some unknown reason. This bed is at the edge of the back patio that doesn’t exist yet. Access is through the patio door, which also doesn’t exist. Well, it does, but it’s a regular double window right now, and not a door. I’ve been wanting this ever since I first walked through this house, and discovered that I have a half acre backyard, and no way to get to it except through the garage. Dumb.

One of the reasons I’m doing so many raised beds is because the soil here is for crap. Black clay that turns to cement in the summer, and heavy mud when it rains. Whenever I plant something, I dig down six inches, and replace the clay with better soil. That leaves me with a lotta extra dirt to get rid of. So, dirt from the hole in the front yard for a new section of walkway becomes part of the new blended soil for the beds in the back. Yes, that means hauling wheelbarrows of dirt from front to back. It’s not a pretty process.

While I was in the backyard, I took down the garage screen door, which had been falling apart all winter, and discovered that the trim around the back door is rotted. Well, so is the door, but that’s a story for another day…

Weevil won’t come outside very often, but he does like to patrol the back forty while I’m out there. Today, he jumped out of his skin when a branch touched his back. He also looked up to make sure I was still there every ten feet, and the moment I turned to go back inside, he ran to join me. He’s a weird old dog.