some friends in a local small town nearby keep me in mind when they have extra stuff from making wood for their wood burner... the other day i finish my chores for the morning and am just sitting down after getting cleaned up and they give me a ring saying they have some bags of stuff. after a few moments to establish that i'm not getting back up for anything short of the house being on fire or an acute digestive attack or Mom needing immediate attention or someone knocking on the door... ah, where was i? oh yea, so after a few moments i'm glad to know they aren't coming out right away and i can continue my contemplation of the flowers and clouds or perhaps the insides of my eye-lids (was i snoring? i'm pretty sure i was last night.) for at least a few hours...
what magic gifts were they bringing? bark off trees about 7 bags worth, but then he said he could bring more if i wanted. wanted!? i was drooling. some of the bark he's brought me before makes excellent edges around raised beds (protects them from the rains washing them down, gives bugs, worms, snakes, froggies, etc. places to hide, covers up weeds, ... eventually turns into wonderful black topsoil.
we don't have garage space for the bags. when he drops them off (i love people who deliver!) i get the wheelbarrow and move them off to where they are ending up.
it just so happened that at the bottom of the north garden there's a low spot that collects both weeds and the overflow from the rains and i had already put down a layer of cardboard and that was being held in place with some rocks (we likes rocks we do). i'd just put it down two days ago. like i knew... smothering is a great way to weed an area. :) then along the north edge of the north garden was some topsoil that i'd added wood chips on top of for a few years so it was coming along nicely and was calling out for being moved "uphill" into the north garden proper, so i excavated that and moved a few crocuses and daffodils (too wet there can't believe they survived as long as they did) and so after moving the bags of bark many of the paper bags don't hold up well to being used to move such chunks. after the excavating is done along the edge then the bags go down in a few layers and then the bark gets dumped on top. or as some would say here "strategically placed to cover up the bags and giving a neat and orderly appearance." so the raccoons can come and tear it up looking for goodies some night...
even more fun, some leaves are mixed in with the bark and small pieces of wood too. as i'm dumping this stuff out i'm thinking "WORM FOOD!" and so now it is all in place, looks like i planned it this way. and best of all in a few years i can move the chunks of bark aside in a few moments and find some fresh made topsoil from cardboard, leaves, smothered weeds, worms and perhaps some interesting fungi. there's usually some moss or lichens.
i have to write those friends a note of thanks.
perfect timing on the rain last night too. :)
songbird