Dirty Dirt (Day 633)

Not had much to report lately as I've been piddling along with the landscaping. All the irrigation lines are in, I've built the manifolds for the solenoids (control values), and pulled a lot of weeds that came up before our recent dry spell. Summer arrived here on July 6, lasted 5 days, then Spring came back. But Summer is here again, with temps in the high 70s, maybe even 80 by Sunday. All the locals are talking about getting AC installed—wimps.

We need to finish off the front yard, which will have an area of shrubs and flowers separated from a small lawn by a walkway. I had picked up a load (1 yd, 1500 pounds) of Magical Soil from a farmer about 5 miles south of here. Took my little "trailer that can" and had him load it up. I backed it around the house and off loaded it into an area that was low and was going to be a planter bed. No worries, mate.

The Magical Soil isn't so magical, at least to an old dirt bag (aka surficial geologist) like me. So yesterday we moved a lot of dirt around, by hand. The magical soil is about 1/3 clay and silt, 1/3 peat, and 1/3 composed manure. The farmer who blends it is running a grass-fed beef operation in Chimacum Valley, and he gets all the material right there in the valley. The valley is a 15,000-year-old glacial drainage way that flowed north to Discovery Bay. After the Puget Sound Vashion Glacier melted away, all these drainage ways were left stranded and wet, so peat deposits started to form in them. The farmer, Roger Short, says he had drilled the deposit and its 60 ft thick, although the water table is about 10 ft down in the dry season. So unless he wants to do some major water pumping, he can only mine the upper 10 ft. To make the soil, he blends composed manure (from the cows) surface soil (clay and silt) and the peat. Organic is high and it retains water pretty well. So I ordered 8 yds for delivery onto the driveway, then Tim Hamm brought another 2 yds over late in the day. I hired a local kid (young, strong) named Bison, yes like the buffalo. What were the kid's parenting thinking (or smoking). He showed up at 8 am, wheel barrow in hand, and ready to go at it. By the end of Saturday, we had moved 10 yds (15,000 pounds) of magical soil from the driveway to the front yard in two wheel barrows. Sounds like fun, yeah (4 Advil at 9 pm).

Nancy's in the hopper next. She needs to plan the magical soil plantings, and I'll do the grass. So my plan is already finished — 800 sq. of sod. So, I think the sod will go down in a few weeks and the shrub/plant install will be later, like September. Maybe Bill and June will want to help (he already said no).