The McFamily: Double Digging Will Kick Your You-Know-What

There's been little computer time recently, so I'll just do a quick catch up on the goings-on here at the ol' McHouse.

Robbie completed building the raised bed last weekend and when we finish with all the soil stuff we'll staple heavy plastic around inside of the wood to provide a barrier between the soil and the wood, since we used pressure treated lumber. Then he'll install a sill-type thingie around the top so we'll have a place to kneel or lay our tools. The sill will also be a tempting place for one member of the family to practice his balancing, no doubt. ;-)

I've spent the last several days trying to break up the red clay that sits below our raised bed. For a number of years the area was the parking spot for the previous home owners boat, so it was really compacted and we knew the roots growing down from the raised bed didn't stand a ghost of a chance penetrating it. Our reading indicated that the way to go is to double-dig the soil, work in some organic matter and then work in your compost/top soil blend, so that's what I've been doing. What a lot of freaking work.

The soil arrived today! In a dump truck!

This is for me, right?

So far I've gotten the clay broken up (and some of it just hauled out completely) and the rocks pulled out. We're going to amend what's there with Moo-Nure (so clever I'm rolling my eyes) as was recommended by The Tasteful Garden, a big organic heirloom nursery east of B-ham.

I've been kind of liking the feeling of waking from sleep slightly sore from digging. The only thing that hasn't been good is that the place where I broke the daylights out of my toe last year has been hurting. I think a trip to the chiropractor is in order since it feels like something is not right in there.

I aim to get the bed finished by Friday so we can head out to The Tasteful Garden over the weekend and get some seeds and/or seedlings. I have about a hundred books on organic gardening, raised bed gardening, vegetable gardening in central Alabama and other related subjects on hold at the library. Since this is our first time around we hope to learn about how much space different things need, when they should be planted etc. We're thinking we might do a version of the Square Foot Gardening to lay out the plants.

One of the things I picked up for RiRi when we went to the library yesterday is the Grammer Rock video, which he loves. He likes them all but he's especially keen on Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here, so this one's by far his favorite. I've always loved those videos and especially the music; the lyrics are fabulous and the tunes are too. I never knew who was behind all that music though, till recently. I checked out a Bob Dorough/Dave Frishberg cd from the library several weeks back and listened to it a lot in the car. It was only today, when Riley was watching Grammar Rock, that I finally started hearing Bob Dorough's voice and style all over the Grammar Rock music. I checked Mr Dorough's site and they have a bunch of good info on his work with that project. I also learned in my looking around today that he was a big influence on Mose Allison's early work. Cool! And who in the world knew that it was Blossom Dearie singing on some of those tracks?

And now on to some shameless cuteness, as predicted in my first post. Behold the boy: