Minesweeper: Gardening by Trial

It's getting close to that time of year again. My home gardening exploits give me fresh produce in the summer, and eggs almost all year, but most importantly, it keeps me honing my agricultural skills. It seems like the average suburbanite doesn't seem to have any agricultural skills at all, and they completely take for granted the fact that there is more to making food grow than simply planting seeds and putting water on it (at least, if you intend to be effective anyway).

My first garden attempt, as a teenager, was a complete failure; It looked good and I had a good location, with nice raised rows, but I had no clue what I was doing. The most valuable asset in my gardening experiences has been that I've become more observant of the patterns in our climate, so I can effectively weigh out risks and benefits when I plan out my garden. For example, my first garden attempt was in the middle of a hot June and in soil that had very little to offer. I watered in at the worst times of the day and produced absolutely nothing. Most of what I learned from that point forward was by continuing trial, error and getting bits of information from people around me who grew things.

At the time, my main adviser was my mother, it took years for me to realize how clueless we both were. She had lots of experience growing flowers and landscaping, but very little making produce. I'm the one giving out the advice now, just last year I had to explain why a small greenhouse and pots on her southern deck would not be sufficient for strawberries due to their intolerance of heat, whereas tomatoes would love an environment like that... Which reminds me of my second year, when she rightfully directed me to plant some tomatoes against a wall so that they could get more heat and light reflection, but the wall she suggested was on the Southeast side of the house rather than the Southwest, giving the advantage of morning light, but too much afternoon shade. I had huge tomatoes, but only half of them ripened before the frost came that year.

The point of saying that is that transitioning from knowing about the theory of gardening and applying it succesfully are very different. I'm humbled yearly by experiences which show me how complex and different many plants can be. I've become very good at growing some, but still need to fine-tune countless others.
Other than my tomato problem, my second garden was made primarily of nursery bought plants, and combined with the good fortune of a hot summer, I was able to grow a lot of produce. Like many first gardening attempts, however, I can see now (with humility) that the things which made it work, such as a good location and the right starting time were based in nothing more than sheer luck on my part.
My years in an apartment left me unable to plant anything, but when we got our first house, a well-positioned garden with a fence and raised beds gave us the inspiration to try again. I had already learned that some plants needed to be started indoors in our state, and had gained a good base of knowledge from my experience at my parents house.

The main problem with the garden at our first house is that we forgot it too frequently, because, while it's position was great for growing, it was behind our garage and also great for forgetting. We managed to hold it together the first year, but by the second we were too busy and ventured behind the garage too infrequently. The heat sensitive plants died and the tolerant plants lived, but with only just enough to pull together some tiny ears (of the most delicious) corn and some fantastic sugar beets (it's hard to kill beets).
The third growing season for our house, I was commuting to work in Seattle and we were preparing to sell and move to a new home, so we missed our opportunity entirely, though gardening had been part of our reason for buying that house in the first place. By the next season I bought a tiller, some garden tools and picked a spot which would be out of the way and offer the most sunlight that my yard could give. After several years of partial failures, I was finally able to select a good location based on experience and understanding and even more importantly, I knew which foods I could grow there and which would have to be potted and placed in another location.

I chose a location at the top of my hillside where I got m more light than any other spot, the hillside would offer good drainage (but I would have to improve the soil) it was far enough from the house to get the advantage of late evening sunlight, the only kind in Washington which is intense enough to keep corn happy... I painstakingly tilled the ground, pulling out hundreds of rocks left there by the county as part of an unrelated project, I composted for months in advance, spreading mulch and adding nutrients to soil that was a little sandy, I planted as soon as the frost was certainly gone and I was blessed with an unusually steady spring, summer and early fall; I weeded and watered faithfully and I harvested bounties of corn, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, beets and cucumbers (I even expanded my original tilled garden in the first year to make more room), but ultimately, half of what I tried to grow died or never produced.

I couldn't say that I was crushed, not with as much delicious food that I was able to make succesfully, but such staggering losses showed me that I had a lot more to learn. That was when my paradigm began to shift and I realized that conventional wisdom came from places with 120 - 140 days of viable growing weather, where March truly marks the coming of spring and where you could lose an early plantation of corn, with plenty of time to start over and try again... Those of us in the Northwest have to hone our skills further and pay more attention to our trials if we want more success...

I have developed a relatively succesful system now, whereby I plant sections at different intervals according to the preferences of what I plan to grow, I have to become more intimate with the plants and get to know their preferences if I want success. Some of them start outside and tolerate the cold-wet spring, some have to be sprouted indoors and some of them can be planted in July, when others are done producing for the season. The main point is that I try to limit my attempts at new introductions to one or two per year, knowing that my first year may result in failure, but that my second year will yield more success. I can never say that I'll be entirely confident in my ability to produce any one type of plant with certainty, even the ones which are usually hardy and successful.

When new gardeners ask me for advice in a specific area, it only takes a few seconds before their glossy eyes show that I've tried to give them details which they will only learn through experience as I did. Instead, it's easier to say that the the key to successful gardening in the Pacific Northwest stems from nothing more than making the least amount of mistakes possible in any given year, and trying to make less the next.

Waste Consuming Reproduction Factories

In other words, I got four hens a few weeks ago.

Peter and Karen had raised these four hens from chicks at their home in Miller Bay Estates, not knowing that their homeowner's association covenant did not allow any livestock of any sort, no matter how small.

They didn't want to risk selling them to someone who would turn them into meat and they also wanted to be sure that the four girls could stay together; Knowing that I had intentions of turning half of my garden shed (the one I talked about in "The Big Move" no less) into a coop and creating a large pen in an otherwise unusable part of my yard, I came to mind right away.

I went over a few weeks ago and helped them take down their temporary coop, both hauling it away for them and scoring some free lumber and wire with which I could construct my own.

Since I have a few things to do before I can build their new coop and pen area, I made a temporary coop of my own using a combination of scrap lumber which I already had and the parts I took away from Peter and Karen. In the end I only threw away a few unusable pieces of lumber and wire from their original temporary coop.

I made a basic lumber frame out of 4x4's which used to be fence posts that were part of the fence which was falling over at the end of my garden and 2x4's from the fence which used to be falling over in my front yard.

Being a tall person I was concerned about standing room, so I went with a simple lean-to design which gives me enough head room to stand and keeps rain from collecting on the roof.

Here is the finished product.


They were using an igloo doghouse as the nestbox, and instead of building a custom nest box, I went for the quick solution of moving forward with the doghouse. The only alteration I made was building a short base for it to rest on, giving the chickens more ground room and making it easier to get eggs since it is at a higher level. I have some more lumber which I may use to build a more appropriate nest box, but whether or not I do that depends on how soon winter comes and if I will be able to finish their new coop instead. For now, the doghouse is a great summer home, as bulky as it is.

The odd angled boards which seem out of place in the foreground are roosts, which the hens love.

I made a ramp which they can use to get up to the nestbox, but they usually bypass the ramp and hop directly in.



In addition to the ramp, you can see that I made another small stand for their water dish. With chickens, anything that is on the ground is fair game for roosting, so their water was getting knocked over or filled with dirt daily. Now that I raised it up to head level for them, they don't knock it over or get mud in it anymore. One of their favorite places to take dirt baths is right below the stand.

Another item I made out of scrap lumber was a small feeder, which you can see below the ramp (it stays extra dry down there).


It's pretty easy to build these, I used scrap 2x6's to build the box, and though it's hard to see in this picture, I bent some old wire fencing over the top in an A form so that they have 4x2" slots to eat from. This keeps them from walking in the food or standing on the feeder. It also prevents them from fighting over the food, it is hard to explain but if you watch chickens eat they are constantly nabbing whatever they can right out of the mouths of their friends, and when they are trying to chase each other away from whatever they've found, they do so by pecking at each other in the same fashion.

They all came with names, in this picture the one looking at the camera in the back is Sadie, and the one pecking the ground is Macie. Sadie is a little bit bald on her head.


In this picture Sadie is again in the back, the closest chicken is Malalie and the one with a little more red around it's neck on the left is Sophie.... I think... We have a hard time telling the two apart.


Here you have Sophie in the foreground, Malalie just behind her and in the far back, partially blocked by the roost is Macie. Sadie is the one showing her butt to the camera.


They produce 3 to 4 eggs per day on average, some days they only leave us 1 and sometimes one of them doubles up and they make 5.

The coop is where they spend most of their time, but they get to come out at least once a day, we let them roam the yard freely with supervision (they love the garden, but we aren't done growing vegetables yet this year). They mostly hang around the fence and the shed, digging in the plants to find slugs and insects. If one of them finds a slug, they usually run across the yard at full speed to try keeping it for themselves, but the others chase them down and it's mayhem until one of them finally eats it.

Coughlin absolutely loves the chickens, even though he was afraid of them the first day. It only took him a few hours to start mimicking their clucking. When he wants to go see them now (which is several times a day) he grabs our pants and pulls while saying "bock, bock, bock" in a deep, scratchy voice. He will make a sound which is also very close to the word "chicken" now, but he will only say it after a lot of coaching.

Every night after work Coughlin and I go out together to pull up dandelions from the yard or weeds from the garden to feed to the chickens. Dandelion leaves are one of their favorite foods (aside from slug of course). It's mostly an excuse to work on weeding the lawn, but I pull a bucket full of dandelions out of the ground and dump them into the coop nightly and by the next morning there is usually no trace left of the large pile of greens. They consume the dandelions completely, tearing off every leaf first, then the stems and eventually the roots.

I usually set aside a handful for Coughlin and I to feed to the chickens ourselves. He brings one of his small chairs from the porch (with much grunting) and sits in front of the wire while I hold dandelions leaves and let the hens tear them up. Coughlin will occasionally hold out one or two per night, but the chickens grab it so quickly that it startles him (which he laughs about) so he prefers to drop them through the chicken wire instead. When we run out, he usually grabs strands of grass to feed them until I tell him that it's time to go in and say goodbye to the chickens. He waves his hand and says "buh" to them, turning around and repeating the process several times before we get to the porch.

The chickens eat about as much feed as Abby does in a day, but their feed is much cheaper. We feed them a mix of chicken feed pellets and scratch grains, which are cracked grains of wheat, corn, rye, etc. A 50lb bag of feed is about $14 and a 50lb bag of scratch grains is about $10. We also mix in some crushed oyster shell and grit every once in a while, the oyster shell providing enough calcium to produce egg shells and the grit being for digestion. Those two supplements are not completely necessary for us since our chickens are out often enough to forage for what they need or want. They are made mostly for chickens living in more confined spaces on an egg farm or otherwise.

Ultimately, I'll have a pen for them which borders the garden, which will also be fenced, and during the fall and winter I will let them keep my garden weed free and fertilized for me, while during the spring and summer they can eat blackberry bushes and stinging nettles which cover my hillside.

It's a pretty good trade in my opinion. I give the chickens all of the stuff I don't want and they turn it into eggs which I do want.

The Big Move: Another Crazy Project I Dreamt Up Comes to a Close

It all came together unexpectedly. I sent a message to Ben (my "wood guy") a message to order my fire wood for next year, and I mentioned in passing that I was looking to move my garden shed and wondered if he would rent me his flatbed trailer for a weekend. I was surprised to find his generous response. I could borrow it for free if he could drop it off this weekend (March 12th) with my second load of firewood and that he'd happily pick it up the following Monday.

A sudden rush of calculations whiz through my mind, I've been planning to do this for more than a year, the thought of being able to wrap it all up in one day got my adrenaline flowing. I go over the plan in my head several times. I still had to finish clearing the new space, buy some concrete mix, get the posts in the ground. I had everything I needed aside from the concrete, more lists burned through my head, tools, beams, blocks, floor jack... As if a light goes off I decide that I can actually make this work. I respond to Ben with an affirmative, still in moderate disbelief that I had a free day on a weekend and that all of these plans could come together so quickly.

The pace of the project would not be my style at all, I tend to try for a patchwork plan of implementation, piecing things together at a slow and steady pace. I can easily adapt to rapid demands like this, but it was certainly not what I expected. The lack of time I have to dedicate to projects like these make a slower approach almost a given. Even now, being done, it's hard to believe that the whole project was completed like this.

The shed itself was situated in the North East corner of my yard, right on the edge of the hill, the veritable border where my level upper yard descends sharply into a creek filled ravine. The picture below doesn't make it look like much, but the floors were made with 2x6 studs and the structure is water tight, it has been a great garden shed but it has always been located in a very inconvenient spot. The whole reason for this move is that I want to build a large open woodshed (about 25' x 8') where I can store my firewood, lawn tractor, garden tools and everything else. This blue garden shed has been in that location and I need it to use as a place to store all my gardening implements until the new shed is made.

My first iteration of plans basically included dismantling the shed in place and storing everything on my covered patio while the new building was constructed, but after a lot of deliberation, I realized that the shed was not attached and could simply be moved instead. My first impulse was to rent a forklift; the shed (by my calculations it can't weigh more than 1200lbs at the most) was well within the capacity of a forklift, but I would have to overcome the obstacles of strapping it in place and having enough traction for the forklift to get across the yard. The problem with renting a forklift is that the cheapest forklift seemed to be about $140 for four hours, and the rental company had to drop it off and pick it up for you. Which meant that if this didn't work, I would be out the cost of forklift rental with nothing to show for it.

Someone I spoke to suggested building skids out of 4x6 beams and dragging the shed across the yard, and also suggested trying to roll it with drain pipe. As I thought these over, I realized that skids or rolling it on pipe would both require me to jack the shed up, at which point I realized that if I could raise it a few inches for skids or pipes, I could raise it high enough to put it on a flatbed trailer and tow it into place. This would be a lot cheaper than renting a forklift and it would cause minimal damage to my both my yard and shed at the same time. That settled it, months of thinking things over in my mind and I finally had a flatbed and it wasn't going to cost me anything to use, I just had to do the work in one day.

Here is a picture of the shed before the move. It needs to be painted, and the door that was installed was an interior door (just veneer) so it's falling apart, but if you were to inspect the studs and plywood of this structure, you would agree about how solid and move-worthy this shed truly is.



I got up around 6:30 on Saturday and started work immediately. The first step would have to be digging post holes and setting the posts in concrete. I went out on Friday night to buy the concrete and I already had some short cedar posts which I had purchased as part of the lumber for my larger and future-planned woodshed project.

I measured out my area, cleared out a few bits of brush and put two green fence posts in the ground where I expected the rear corners of the shed to align. I used my digging spade to dig the rear post holes, going much larger than I thought was necessary to make sure that I had a very firm footing in the otherwise soft soil at the edge of my hill. The first two holes I dug were too close together, but it only took a few minutes to move both over a few inches each.

I went 16" into the ground on each hole, then picked out a short post and used soil to level it. When I was ready for the concrete, I hooked up my garden tractor's small trailer and used it to haul the 80lb bags of concrete as well as the tools I would need.



My dad loaned me a concrete mixing container which he's had around and has not used for a very long time. It basically amounts to an over-sized kitty litter box, but it works very well for mixing up concrete, I was able to fit one 80lb bag at a time and mix it fairly effectively.

Before pouring in the concrete, I used my large level to re-affirm the placement of my posts. Since the trailer was about 90" wide, I made the posts a little more than 8' apart on the inside edges. Since each post was also about 10" wide, this meant that the posts would come within about 6 inches of the outside edge of the shed when it was in place.

Here is a picture of the first post after dropping concrete in. Behind the post you can see the green steel fence-post I was using as a marker for the rear corner of the shed.



Partially because my rear post-holes were oversize due to the relocation of them, I used two full 80lb bags of concrete in each. When I got to the front post-holes I was able to get away with about 50lbs of concrete in each since I did not have to move them and I had a better idea of the size I would actually need. I only bought four 80lb bags of concrete, so after putting in the two rear posts I was all out of concrete.

Since my Dad was coming over to help me out I called him to see if he could bring four more bags with him, which he agreed to do. I still had several other tasks to complete before my Dad arrived, so I got started on them after a short lunch. The first task I took on was digging the two front post-holes. As mentioned before, I was much more effective in making these appropriately sized by using my post-hole digger more than my digging spade. I selected some appropriately sized posts and made sure everything was ready for the concrete to arrive. All of the posts, front and rear, were buried 16" in the ground, leaving about 16" above ground. My plan was to make these all level by using a 2x4 and fencing level to mark them and my chainsaw to cut off the excess after the concrete was well set.

Having secured the future of the posts, I moved on to the trailer. Since Ben mostly uses this trailer to haul rounds of wood, he has mounted 2x4's and plywood around the outside edges. All of this would have to come off before the shed could go on. I carefully removed every bolt and washer, numbering all the parts of the frame with pencil and drawing arrows to show the upward and forward directions. Ben had warned me in advance that the trailer would only go together one way, so I made a concerted effort to note all of the details that I could.

After getting all of the bolts out, the side panels came out fairly easily, though the OSD board that they were made of was definitely not light. I set all of the parts near my patio in a place where I would not inadvertently run over them, and where they could easily be put back on the trailer the next day.

Having finished that, I moved a few of the telephone poles which were in place to separate my garden from the rest of my yard (after I till my garden this year it will become a retaining wall separating my higher level lawn from my lower garden). I rolled the poles well out of the way and made sure that the invisible fence wire underneath would be safe to back over.

The next task was to take the tractor back to the garage to collect some heavy things like a couple of blocks, jack stands (which I didn't end up using at all) and my 3-ton floor jack. I parked in the front so that I could load up the concrete as soon as my dad arrived, which he did as soon as I pulled the tractor around. We loaded up the concrete and all the tools I would need and headed around to the back yard again (talking a little about my new truck that I hadn't yet told him about).

I dropped the jack and stands off at the shed as I drove by and then headed over to the posts. We mixed up the concrete (a lot faster with two people), poured it in for both posts, ensured that they were level and then went up to move some things out of the shed while they set.

Since I was operating on short notice, I didn't have much time to move everything out of the shed. I had taken a few things to the patio already after getting home from work on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but I still had a lot of garden tools, two air conditioners (which I moved with the tractor's trailer) and some other things. We moved everything except for the air conditioners right outside the door and stacked them near my fence line to the left of the shed (out of the way but still saving time). There was also a considerable amount of scrap lumber (a lot of which the former owners left) under the shed which we had to move out of the way.

I pulled out two 4x6 beams from my pile of lumber next to the shed, set the jack on the ground and after double and triple checking everything, we started raising the shed on the right side. I initially tried to just use one of the floor joists, which was a 2x6's, but after raising it about half an inch, I could see that it was bending more than I wanted, so I lowered it again and then started over using one of the 4x6 beams directly under the floor joist. I don't have a picture of this since I wasn't rolling around in the dirt and didn't want my camera to be smashed, but to describe it the best way I can, the 4x6 was running directly under the floor joist the whole depth of the shed on the right side, and was sticking out 2 to 3 feet on either side of the shed. This allowed the weight to spread enough that the shed held steadily.

Once we had the shed high enough, we pulled out the cinder blocks which it had been resting on (most of them were thoroughly filled with dirt and grass), then put them them back in place, along with a few pieces of scrap lumber to raise it up. We started to raise the other side by using the same process on the left, except that we accessed it from the rear of the shed where there was more room to get the jack and beam in place (the ground at the left front was much higher).

One of my chief complaints about this shed in it's original location was that it was never leveled properly after the county finished their drain field behind it. The short version of the story is that the county has a storm drain that releases into a small drain field in our back yard. The original owners back filled the original and it was apparently causing problems with clogging on the other end. So while the house was up for sale and nobody was there to object, the county came in and rebuilt the drain field. When they did so, they dismantled a fence which used to border the property and apparently had to move the shed, at least that is what I assume since we weren't there to see it all. It was never a serious problem, but it was just un-level enough that the door would not stay open and tools could only be stacked against the back wall since they would just fall down if you leaned them against the front.

This problem was causing stability issues after we raised the left side of the shed and moved back to the right. Just before we started jacking up the right again, the shed shifted about 6 inches to the left, moving it's weight onto three of the temporary posts (one now at a 45 degree angle) and the fourth being unused entirely. The first step in correcting this was to shift a little more weight back onto the temporary post which was completely unused. We carefully placed the temporary post back in place and used more blocks of wood to raise it's height. After getting it as tight as we could without jacking it up any further, we moved back to the left side and started raising it off of the temporary posts which had fallen over.

We made a more secure footing for the temporary posts and reset the shed's weight, that was basically the only excitement we had in the process of raising the shed up. We progressed in the same manner, doing a few inches at a time on each side and gradually making the temporary posts higher and higher. After the first two rotations of this process, we started using large firewood rounds which were delivered to me the day before, at every resting point, I would re-measure to see how much higher we would have to go. I also took measurements to ensure that we left enough space on either side to fit the trailer underneath when the time came. In the end, each temporary post consisted of one 18" wood round, a cinder block and a 4x6 block. On the back posts we had to use a couple of additional 2x4's to level it out.

I used my 8lb sledge to break up the concrete ramp which used to go to the door (the poorly made concrete came apart easily) and we dug out a little bit of the dirt as well. There were all sorts of treasures left below the shed in addition to these things, I had to remove shards of glass from a broken window pain and a wide variety of other interesting wood and metal scraps.

I took my final measurements, checking for the 23 inches of clearance we would need in the front for the trailer to clear. We only had half an inch to spare, so I decided that we would back the trailer up to the shed with the truck, then disconnect it and walk it the remainder of the distance. This gave us a little more room to play with since the height of the hitch on the truck made the trailer raised slightly. Once underneath, we would back the truck up and reconnect, then lower the shed onto the trailer.

This all went very well, the trailer was pretty heavy, but it slid under the shed without a problem and we reconnected the truck with ease once the trailer was in place. I raised the shed just enough to remove the blocks and carefully lowered it down to the trailer deck, once the weight was resting fully, we quickly checked the tire clearance to make sure we weren't rubbing the deck. Having plenty of clearance to spare, we lowered the other side and checked again, everything was clear and well balanced.

Here is the truck in front of the shed just after it was lowered onto the trailer.


You can see the firewood rounds we used to prop it up. under the bottom right corner.

Here is a picture of the shed itself on the trailer. We used the ladder to put a 4x6 across the top to make it at least a little bit more secured on the trailer. I was going to use two of them, but one of them was not quite long enough to cross the whole roof and we were starting to run out of daylight.


While my dad used the 4x6 beam and ladder to secure the trailer, I started up my chainsaw and moved over to the posts to level them out.

Since the ground was not level, there was no way to measure the posts out for a perfectly level cut. The method I used was fairly simple and can be applied in any construction project where you are using posts on un-level ground. The problem is that you'll only be able to control how far your lowest point will be from the ground, the others portions will vary in distance depending on the change in slope.

In order to do this, all you need is a pencil, a long, straight board and a good level, the size of the level does not matter. All that you do is place your level in the center of the board, put one end of the board on your shortest post, then hold the board up to the post you intend to cut. Use the level to find out when you are level, then make your mark along the bottom of the board. Do the same for every other post, once you are done cutting, you can verify your accuracy by laying the board across each post. No matter which two posts you choose, the level bubble should always be floating in the middle. If there are any mistakes, trimming or using a shim should be fairly easy.

In my case I was using a chainsaw, which is unsatisfactorily sloppy for accurate cutting, but was the fastest way to make a cut where perfection didn't matter. In the end the cuts were a little slanted and uneven, but once the beam was laid over the top, it wasn't going to make a difference. My first cut was the biggest reduction of them all, I cut off about 12 inches of the post to bring it down to the right level, it was for the right front post. The two rear posts only had to shave off about 3 inches each.

When I was done, all of the cuts I made were about 1.25" taller than the post I started with as the lowest point. I assume that I inadvertently made my first mark across the top of the 2x4 and not the bottom, then measured the rest based on that inaccurate cut. In any case, instead of redoing all of the cuts, I simply used a 2x6 to bring the shortest post up to par (the perfect fit of the 2x6 is what makes me think I was measuring across the top of my board and not the bottom).

After getting the shed onto the trailer, I was feeling rather giddy. I had been laughing to myself for most of the afternoon at certain points when my ideas would actually come together. I was so tired and rushed that the entire jacking process seemed somewhat unreal as I went on a roller coaster of feelings, thinking that it was actually going to work and that the task was impossible. One of the key points in our eventual success was when we discovered that the stability of the shed required you to use the outermost joist of the shed as your fulcrum. The 36" difference in using the next joist in changed the pivot of the shed drastically, even though the majority of the weight was still secured on the opposite side, it was simply not stable. I believe that a denser or heavier item would probably never have the same problem in this case, but it was an interesting lesson. The most interesting part being that it was easiest to use the jack to raise the shed from one joist in from the end, even though the pivot points worked better from the outermost joist.

Having leveled the posts and cleared the way, I was ready to start moving. I was still in a general state of disbelief when I started. I told my dad that if for some reason the trailer pulled my truck and myself down the ravine and I died in a fiery ball of flames to tell everyone that I died doing what I love, which would have been true had it happened that way.

I put the truck in 4 wheel drive low in anticipation of the damp ground and heavy load and began to roll forward. The trailer jerked a lot at first, I went as slowly as I possibly could since the ground of my yard has a lot of dips. and the trailer was rocking quite a bit. I pulled as close to the far fence as I could, then got into reverse and began to turn slightly. The shed and trailer were facing the wrong direction in the beginning. Even though the final position in the direction it would be facing was just a few degrees off of the direction it was facing to start with, I would have to do a complete 180 degree switch in order to get the truck and trailer going on the right direction to get into place. The house, wood pile, cedar tree and hot tub (another project) were in the place I needed to be in order to make this a simple job. I had to pull forward and back up several times in order to get the trailer going in the right direction down the slope.

It took a seven point turn to get everything on the right path. As the trailer got towards the bottom of the upper slope, it went through the ruts which I made for my telephone pole retaining wall. It took several iterations of going through these ruts until we felt we had the right angle, during one of the attempts I pulled forward a tiny bit too fast and one side of the shed lifted off the trailer then fell back in place. At this point I wasn't worried much about the safety of the shed, I had always calculated in the complete destruction of the shed ad a possibility in my plan. I accepted before starting any work on this project that something might go wrong and my shed may end up in splintered pieces or wrong side up in the middle of my yard. At that point, I wouldn't have been at any real loss since I would just use my posts for a new shed's foundation and I would have needed to take my old shed out eventually anyway, so I really had nothing to lose by trying.

The biggest difficulty in backing up in this case was that I was completely unable to see the trailer itself from the cab of the truck. I was also completely unable to see around the monstrous shed which was on top of the trailer, so I was relying entirely upon direction from my dad to guide me into place. Since there was a juvenile western red cedar (pictured later) directly in front of the shed's new home, I was going to have to back in at an angle towards the posts and then turn at just the right moment. It would not be the most complex backing maneuver I've ever accomplished, but it was certainly the hardest because I had no visibility around or beyond the shed.

It took two or three tries to get into the space before we got the right angle so that the trailer even went into the space between the four posts. Once we got in, my dad had me pull forward and back to wiggle all the way back into the space. He said "I think that's it" so I stepped out and began to investigate, the two front posts looked good, but when I got around to the back, I saw that the far post in the rear was not under the shed at all. Just six inches from victory over a minor angle adjustment. I didn't have any more room to adjust, I would have to pull out and try again. We talked it over for a minute and then pulled out carefully to adjust and try again.

This time we tried a different approach, I pulled up as close to the cedar tree as I could and tried to slide into the space, but being that the angle was shallow, we didn't have enough control or room to get it into the space. I got out and told my dad that we'd have to back at a steeper angle so that I had room to turn and maneuver, the way we were trying to come in would require me to get the truck into a place right where the cedar tree was, and there length of the truck and trailer combined was too much for that space.

We pulled out and tried again, Brandy came out to see how things were going and let me know what time it was, my dad was on one side and Brandy on the other. My dad guided me back and Brandy, standing next to the passenger window began to say "You'll have to stop because at this angle you are going to hit the post" while at the same time my dad was saying "Keep coming everything is clear." It was too late, I felt a soft lurch as the trailer wheel hit the post.

Brandy was angry that I didn't stop, I explained that she couldn't hear my dad talking at the same time on the other side, so I didn't register what she said. I also encouraged her to simply yell "Stop!" in situations like that to get my attention, then explain the problem to me after I stopped. She was mad, but we laughed about it on the way to dinner later.

I pulled forward and got out, the post had been pushed over so it was leaning, but the damage was minimal. We were able to shove the post back into a perfect upright position and repack the still-wet concrete. If the concrete around the posts was fully set by this time, it probably wouldn't have moved with how slow I was going, but the combined weight of the truck and trailer made a barely noticeable nudge.

After it was reset I pulled forward again, we increased the steepness of the angle again, moving another telephone pole out of the way to make room. Everything went well, we were fairly good at getting into the space at this point. My dad told me to turn to start to slide into the space and I did so, I could see the wheel of the trailer clear the post through my mirror this time. As we continued back I heard a loud cracking of wood, I stopped and my dad checked, it turned out to be an old fence-post and nothing important, so we proceeded.

A few inches more and I felt a little resistance, I stopped and asked if I was against one of the posts, my dad checked and said we were clear, so I continued, but he couldn't see that the drivers side trailer tire was against the rear post, I pushed further and the resistance grew, and my dad eventually said to stop. I pulled forward and walked back to assess the damage. The post was pushed over, similar to the first one we backed over.

I pushed it upright again and packed in the concrete with my boots, I pulled the truck all the way out and parked. I went back to investigate again, and decided that it was simply over. I got back in the truck, thoughts of backing the trailer down the ravine and letting the shed fall to it's doom ran through my mind, but instead I just straightened out, pulled the shed onto the level ground and turned the truck off. I thanked my dad for all the help and explained that I would have to figure everything out the next morning. After 13 hours of hard labor I knew I was in no condition to be making decisions, but my options seemed clear. The next morning I would need to take the shed off of the trailer so that it could be dismantled and it's parts could be used for a new shed.

After my dad left, I took a quick shower and changed so that we could go out to pick up my grandma, we were taking her to dinner to celebrate her birthday from a few days before. Brandy drove for this event because I was already so sore. The dinner was pleasant and the food was good, we went home and had a quiet evening with a relatively early bedtime for a Saturday night.

The whole time my mind was still racing with the possibilities of what I was going to do next, I felt as though the task would not be completed due to our lack of time and I was dreading the weeks ahead where I would need to go through long weekends of dismantling the shed. The stress of incomplete projects really eats away at me, so between that and my sore body, I slept sufficiently, but kept waking up throughout the night.

When morning finally came I felt a lot more clear-minded, no longer depressed, I had regained the majority of my normal confident and nonchalant stature. Since our only plans for the day included going to Hurricane Ridge to show Coughlin snow for the first time, I realized that I had plenty of time to get the shed off of the trailer and subsequently put the trailer back together. I made myself breakfast and then collected my thoughts while drinking my coffee. I went out with coffee in hand and started to asses the situation. The first stop was the posts, I found that each of them, even the two which were displaced the night before, were all completely secure now, the concrete had completely dried and all of the posts were now securely set. I walked along the paths we tried to take and verified in my mind that the angles of approach all seemed attainable. I walked around the yard finding a location to drop the shed so that I could dismantle it later.

I got in the truck and backed the shed into the location where I was considering unloading it, but I couldn't bring myself to accept defeat yet, I decided that I should try to get it into place again, and if I failed, I would dismantle the shed closer to the new foundation.

I moved the truck forward all the way across the yard, then began to back up again. I took an approach which brought the shed very close to the cedar tree, I went very slowly and got out every few inches to make sure I was on the right course. After getting the shed past the tree (breaking a couple of branches as I brushed by) I got to a point where the truck wasn't going to be able to continue without hitting the tree or one of the posts. I turned off the truck for a few minutes while I thought this out. I could either cut the tree down so I could back straight into the space, or I could take on a shallower angle, which would require me to run over my apple tree seedling (which I guessed it would escape from unharmed). After a few minutes of deliberation, I decided to go over the seedling, I really like my cedar tree and I didn't have enough time to play around with cutting it down and clearing it away.

I pulled the truck and trailer forward, more or less at a 90 degree angle to the posts, I got the shed as close to the post side of the cedar tree as I pulled out, and I made sure that my apple tree seedling went between the tires and not under them. As before, I got out every few inches to make sure I was still on track. When I got to the pivot point I turned hard to the left, pushing the sharply to the right. Continuing on at the pace of one or two inches at a time, with minor adjustments to the right or left as needed, I moved the trailer slowly into position. When I finally stopped, the angle of the trailer was slightly off, but it would be more than good enough to drop in place.

Here is my truck right after I finished backing the shed into it's space. If I could have picked up a shot from the sky it would show the extreme angle difference between the direction of the shed and trailer and the truck.


This picture shows the trailer with shed on top, parked neatly between the two posts.


It is no optical illusion, I am definitely about three inches closer to the post on the left than the post on the right.

Now that it was in place, I moved my jack and my blocks over and raised the shed up off the trailer. I only gave myself about six inches of clearance since I wouldn't need much space to pull the trailer out.

Here is the shed just before removing the trailer.


Since the ground was un-level, there were about 12 inches of clearance in the back.

Here is a picture of my jack and the very sophisticated jack assistance tools.


I used various pieces of scrap lumber to spread the weight while I was raising and lowering the shed. In the end I didn't cause any damage to the shed's structure or cosmetic damage (not that you could tell if I had).

Here is the shed standing on the blocks after I pulled the trailer away. You can see the tiny, short posts way down below.


I laid my 4x6 beams across the posts as squarely as possible, I used some 4d nails to secure the beams to the posts and lowered the shed down. It came down quickly, it only took one turn to get the shed onto it's new foundation.

Here is the picture of the shed after completion, you can see that it is just a little off center and slightly angled, but still securely in place.


This picture shows one of the steel fence posts that I put in place as a marker for where I wanted the shed corners to be. You can see the bottom of the other one just behind the shed close to the ground.


I was pretty happy that in the end I was only about 2 inches off from my intended mark, well within tolerable margins of error for this project. Just to the right of the end of the shed you can see my grapevine which I cut back entirely this year so that I can change it's direction to run along the side of the shed between the shed and the garden. I'm hoping that this directional change will help produce more grapes since the vine will get more sunlight.

We took our trip to hurricane ridge and my mood had changed entirely. I was completely relieved to have another finished project, especially one which I felt was doomed just a few hours before.

In all, if anyone is thinking of moving a large shed this way, I would tell them that it's a completely insane idea, but that I have proof that the concept can work.

Free Retaining Walls and Plants on Clearance

We were at Wal-Mart on Sunday and I checked out the garden area to see if there were any vegetable plants on clearance. It's late in the season to be starting anything, but they had a surprising amount of plants available, many of which should be capable of maturing in time.

To be specific I purchased two pumpkin plants and two cucumbers, since the rows I tried to grow my pumpkin and cucumber seeds in this year were too cold and dark. I also bought a pack of six heads of red lettuce and two red bell peppers which both have a very short 30 day average maturity.

I immediately planted the cucumbers in the end of my row of beans since there was a two foot, space where the beans didn't manage to sprout up. This was also the easiest place to plant them, since I already made a small fence-trellis for the beans to grow on. The rest of the plants would not be so easy.

I knew that the two rows I had already tilled in the spring, but couldn't get any growth in, were not going to work, especially since there isn't much time left before fall (I'll need all the sun I can get). Expanding isn't terribly difficult since I have a tiller now, it would just be a matter of tilling in another section, that is, if it weren't for the invisible fence wire that was buried close to the garden.

It has been about a year and a half since we finished burying the invisible fence wire to keep Abby from going on adventures outside the yard, so the exact location was overgrown and very hard to see but I knew a few locations where the line would be and used those points as a starting reference. I used a small spade, and dug to expose the wire at about three foot intervals. It was only one or two inches under ground in most places, and the soil was dry, so it was fairly easy to locate at first. After making five or six marks, I was directly in front of the garden, where I needed to Till, and decided that I would have to move the line (at least eventually). I pulled up on the line gently in one of the exposed locations to see if it would budge at all to decide how difficult extraction would be and it snapped. This was no big surprise, since it was 18 gauge wire with a very thin rubber coating, but it meant that I had no choice but to lay all new wire in a new path now.

A few weekends ago, I found someone who was giving away telephone poles on Craigslist. They were in Belfair, and buy the time they got back to me and we could meet up on a weekend, they only had a few good poles left. I brought my saw and cut up 5 six foot lengths of pole. My intention all along was to make a small retaining wall about ten feet from the garden, so that I could expand my garden next year, and make my upper lawn healthier in the process. Of course, to keep Abby from digging in the fresh dirt of the garden, I was going to have to move the invisible fence wire anyway, I just didn't think I would have to do it so soon.

I got out a large digging spade and made a trench exactly where I wanted the lenghts of pole to be, then I tapped into the wire for the invisible fence on either side, at it's previous locations, spliced the wires and with a light covering of dirt, I rolled the pole sections into the trench. This made covering the wire very easy, and if I need to access it in the future, it should be much easier to locate as well.


You can't see it in the picture, but on the ends of the wall, I've left enough room for me to create a slope and fit the riding mower through. Before the end of the summer, I would like to till up the entire lower area, and shovel the excess dirt into the upper area. Depending on how much I get, I may need to make a trip out to pick up some topsoil so that I can raise the level all the way to the tops of the pole sections. Leveling out the lawn should help keep it healthier and greener for more of the year.

With the wall finished and the invisible fence active again, I was able to till in the addition to my garden. The soil I tilled up was fairly rich from some composting I did on or near it last summer, but it's not quite as good as the soil in my original garden space this year.

I planted the pumpkins on the far left, where I can allow them to grow out and over some lawn without interfering with the other vegetables.


I put the peppers in the middle.


And the lettuce took up the last three rows on the right.


This is a side view of the entire new section I tilled in, where the invisible fence used to be buried.


As you can see my corn is getting very tall. The tallest stocks are as tall as I am and most of the stocks are starting to sprout their tassels, which means that ears of corn are not far away now.


In a previous blog I mentioned some nectarine trees I planned to plant, but I called them tangerines. It's much more likely that I'll get a nectarine tree to bear fruit than a tangerine, but here is a picture of one of the two nectarine trees I planted on Sunday.


One is planted in the upper portion of the backyard, near the fence, the other is in the front yard between my driveway and the picket fence. Both of the trees are taking to the new-found space very well.

More Talk About Plants

One of my fellow commuters, who lives a couple of miles away, gave me two tangerine trees yesterday. He had grown them from seeds that sprouted in his compost pile, but decided that he didn't have the space for them in his back yard.

Since I have plenty of space in my yard, with lots of sun exposure, I picked them up. It seems like they should be able to bear fruit here at least every few years after maturity, but even if they don't, they are neat looking trees which I'll enjoy having around.

My favorite thing about fruit trees is what little effort they require to maintain and how much fruit they can produce with that little bit of effort; for those reasons, I like vines a lot too. My grape vine is very healthy this year since I cleared out the blackberry bushes which it had been competing with for several years prior. This year it grew up into the branches of a large old maple that had a low hanging bough nearby. Grape vines are impressively tenacious, this one managed to take over a 10x10 section of this bough with only three vines leading up into the branches.

I don't want the vine to waste it's nutrients producing fruit I can't reach, and I don't want it killing the maple tree, so I cut the three vines leading up to the maple. Over the weekend I noticed more buds shooting out of the remaining lower section. Next spring I hope to cut the grape vine all the way back so that I can repair the fencing it has overgrown, take out the remaining blackberry bushes that are competing with it and allow it to grow back with a fresh start.

You can see the healthy, happy grape vine behind me in the picture below showing my happy, healthy corn.



This picture was taken on Friday, but over the warm weekend, the largest corn stalks have actually grown to chest high on me. This year has been unbelievably good for corn in Washington.

For those who don't know already, all of the large trees with pretty blue sky behind them are located on my acre. Those trees in particular are at the bottom of the ravine, where the creek crosses through the corner of my woods. Right behind the grape vine, however, is a shallow slope without any trees on it, I'm thinking about putting in a chicken pen in this location when I finally get chickens. The area in question is full of stinging neddles during the summer, and chickens are particularly good at clearing out small vegetation.

Here is a picture of my beets, just before I pulled the weeds around them. Since this is the first year I've had my garden in this area, weeds come up frequently, hopefully this will slow down next year as I continuously till the area.


Here are my carrots, which are doing particularly well.


And these are my beans so far. They are in the shadiest spot, so they aren't growing as quickly, but they generally have a long season, so they should still produce something for me before it's over.


My last two rows, which included cucumbers, onions, sunflowers and pumpkins have not produced anything promising. The spot was just too shady to get good results. Next year, I'll move my garden over and start with the row my beans are in, since that seems to be the last viable row for growing.

On a side note, my motorcycle is at Burton's now getting new tires put on. I went with a Kenda 671 for the rear and a Kenda 657 for the front tire. They are similar models, but Kenda didn't make any lines which had both tire sizes I needed. I had Kenda tires on my first motorcycle and they are pretty good. They gave me no problems, in fact, one of them picked up a nail once that was bent at a perfect 90 degree angle. It went through one of the treads perfectly, without rupturing the tire.

Since the old tires are still in decent shape, I'll keep them around in case I have any problems down the road and need a tire that's good for a couple thousand miles.

I'll pick up the V-Star on Saturday, then it will be time to check everything thoroughly to make sure it's ready for the trip, now only three weeks away.

Ideal Spring: The Gamble of Vegetables in Washington

As previously stated, I managed to pull together a Garden this year, which I haven't been able to do for several years.

I tilled in my compost and planted all of my seeds in the same day, the first weekend after the last frosty morning. There is a calculated risk involved with planting so close to the frost, but most seeds won't be damaged by freezing temperatures, you only have to worry about that after the sprouts actually come up.

Usually to avoid this risk, but still get your garden started in time, you can sprout your vegetables indoors, or in a greenhouse. However, the potential for shock when you transplant your sprouts is high, so it's imperative that you keep the same soil and light conditions in both your sprouting location inside and the future home outside. Some vegetables, such as corn, are temperamental, even with very careful transplants. Others like beans will thrive no matter what condition changes you put them through.

Anyway, this May turned out to be perfect for sprouting seeds, the morning frost disappeared instantly, as it usually does in Western Washington, and we experienced record rainfall in the first two weeks of May. In order to sprout, most seeds need even temperatures above 50 degrees and a lot of moisture. Normally, the moisture of the soil when sprouting occurs is so high that an adult plant of the same species would be unable to survive. After the rain, we had two very warm weeks, with overcast nights, keeping the temperature higher. By Memorial Day, all of my corn, beans, cucumbers and onions had sprouted. Two weeks later, the beets and cucumbers came up too. I haven't seen any pumpkin sprouts yet, and I don't know if I ever will, because the last row, in which I placed the pumpkins, is just a little too shady.

Next year I plan to expand my garden and move it over a few rows to increase the amount of sun I can absorb.

I placed the three rows of corn on the side of the garden that receives the most sun, since corn thrives on bright, hot days, as long as it has an ample water supply. There is a saying to help you track the progress of your corn which goes "Knee High by the Fourth of July" of course, meaning that if your stocks are knee high before the beginning of July, they should mature in time to provide a good crop in the fall. If you don't reach that goal, all is not lost, but you probably won't get much produce before it is too cold in the fall.

A clear indicator of how unusually good our growing season has been this year, is that most of my corn stocks reached knee height in early June, and are continuing to grow. If the moderately warm weather can team up with a few good rainstorms, I hope to be able to get a couple of harvests in before it's too late.

The next row is cut in half, filled with beets and carrots, being tubers, they also like the light and heat. The carrots are doing very well, and the beats are coming along at a fair pace. You can't see the beets in this picture because they are beyond the two rocks at the end of my carrot row.

After that I have my cucumbers and beans, which prefer to have a little cool shade. They all sprouted very quickly, but have not been very fast to grow. I put up some wire fencing to use as a trellis to keep them from trying to take over the whole garden at ground level. The cucumbers are hard to see because they don't start out as leafy as the beans do, so they are currently just leafless stocks, sticking out of the ground.

In addition to the vegetable gardening, I've been sprouting apple trees since sometime last year. I love gala apples (but only before they turn pithy), so I've been germinating and growing their seeds. My yard is more than large enough to hold a large orchard, so I would like to get a few more fruit trees. Not only do they provide fruit, but they provide shade for the grass to grow in and fertilizer, both from the leftover fruit and from the droppings left by the nearby bird population.

Last year I was able to get two prominent seedlings. I placed the larger of the two in the back yard near the garden, and have planted the smaller tree in the front. I have them both protected by tomato cages right now to prevent any accidental damage while they are still in their first year. I have two first year seedlings that I sprouted last winter which I hope to be able to plant next year and I already have a batch of new seeds germinating for next year. If I can pull it off, I'd like to have several in my front yard, because the direct sunlight tends to bake the grass unless I water it a lot. Since I hate to waste potable water on something as vane as a green lawn (as much as I like having a beautiful green lawn) I'd rather avoid doing that, so growing some fruit bearing trees is an ideal way to improve the whole situation.

Since taking this picture, this larger seedling is almost to the top of the pictured tomato cage.

As part of clearing out my garden, I was able to take out a majority of the blackberry bushes that had overgrown that section of my yard. In doing this, I also uncovered the grape vine shown behind me in the first picture. Last year the vine produced a lot of grapes, but because it was so overgrown by blackberry bushes, it did not get enough light to ripen. I'm hoping that the new-found freedom will give it enough light to ripen this year.

Next year I plan to cut it all the way back and tie it up to help it out some more and finish off the last of the blackberries.

For anyone who who hasn't had a garden before, but is thinking about starting one, I know how daunting it seems, but let me assure you that after the initial set up, the two or three hours per week that you give to your garden will yield you the best fruits and vegetables you will have in your life. If I had the time, I would till up most of my backyard just so that I could consume and share more of the fruits of my own labor.

Composting: Experienced and Exceeding My Expectations

I have missed out on gardening entirely for the last couple of years due to time restrictions or lack of space to do so, but this year I finally got everything together in time.

I started composting more officially a few months before tilling in my garden. I've got a large lawn in the back, so I've obviously been composting since we moved in, but now I've actually set up a bin, which breaks everything down faster and more effectively.

There were four short steel fence posts in my yard because the previous owners had used them to support the crappy picket fence that was in my front yard. Since my neighbor and I agreed to take that down right after I moved in, I kept the steel posts, guessing that they would come in handy down the line.

I drove them into the ground with my sledge in an approximately 5x6 foot rectangle. A few months ago I picked up some free chicken wire that someone posted on Craigslist, so I folded that in half and wrapped it around the posts, using the pre-fabricated tabs on the posts to secure the fence to it.

I have a lot of grass and some other yard waste like leaves and brush to compost. I generally produce as much as you see in the picture below in a two week period during the spring and fall time of year, and in my new bin, it only takes about one week to reduce the pile to a layer only a couple of inches thick.

You can see Abby in the background sniffing around at stuff as Beagles often do. The invisible fence keeps her from getting into my new garden area, which is one of the reasons I chose the specific locations that I did.

The new bin makes it much easier to turn the compost effectively and since more air gets in through the sides, everything breaks down very quickly. I turn it just about every other day and during the cold spring mornings it would steam very actively.

I always knew that compost piles were warm, but I've been studying this recently and have found lots of interesting information about exactly how hot compost can get. I read one article in which a man buried a hot water heater under a 10x10x10 patch of compost and got the water up to 170 degrees. Apparently there are some homes which utilize a compost based heating system and it has been used to heat greenhouses for centuries. Working in my own compost pile really drives this home when I turn it over and the pile is actually hot to the touch.

The heat is caused by bacterial activity from the invisible friends that break down the nitrogen and carbon in all of the items. Everything breaks down most effectively when you have a good balance of nitrogen and carbon, so my pile is usually hottest when I add grass clippings that include a lot of maple leaves from all of the nearby trees.

We recently canceled our curbside trash service because Wal-Mart had a sale on 45 gallon trash cans (of which I purchased six), and I can take the trash to the Olympic Transfer Center for $10 per metric ton myself. Since my truck is a half-ton pickup, it will never cost more than $10. I bought six cans, and we only use about 1/3rd of a can per week, if that, so I'll only have to make the trip ever few months. We've been doing this for two months now and haven't even filled two full cans yet.

I kept the curbside recycling at $5 per month, even though I can recycle items for free at any transfer station. The reason is that in order to recycle at the transfer stations, you have to pre-sort the items and store them until you can make the trip, the $5 per month charge is well worth the time I'll save by simply having the truck come by every two weeks without requiring any sorting or storage.

Anyway, I say this because we have started composting the portion of our trash that can be safely composted to save space in the cans and to keep down the amount of rotting going on in the cans between trips to the transfer station. It's also pretty good for my garden soil, so it's a benefit all around. We keep a small container on the counter in the kitchen, and empty that into a larger plastic bin which we keep on the back porch so that I don't have to walk all the way down to the compost pile every day.

It's been really amazing to see how quickly things will decompose and the impact on my soil quality has been remarkable. I made my initial compost pile on the spot that my garden now sits, and the black, rich soil is hosting some very healthy corn stocks. Since then, I moved my pile to the side of my current garden space, to a location that I plan to till next year when I expand my garden.

At that, I purchased a roto-tiller from my neighbor to help speed up the process. I like doing work manually whenever I can, as many of you know, I split wood with a maul and sledge every year, but my current commute definitely doesn't allow enough time for me to manually and effectively till in a garden, so the addition of a tiller to my compliment of tools has been very handy. I may get to use it for more than gardening, since I have some very packed sections of lawn that could use a good tilling, and it also works great for removing blackberry roots since the tines pulverize the soil and pull everything even remotely solid out of the ground. As a point of the matter, my whole garden area was previously overgrown with blackberries, and the tiller pulled every root out without any problems.

This brings the end of my lunch time to a close, I've had a lot of things to write about recently, but no time to write them in, I hope I can post some more pictures and stories soon.