landscaping

Power-Trippin’

/ Diane Henders / 42 Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember me crowing about the fun I had with a mini excavator we rented back in 2017.

Well, pshaw.  This time we got a SERIOUS machine (and I’m a lot better at operating it now, too):

It’s only a ‘midi’, but at 14,000 pounds it’s much bigger and more powerful than the mini.  (Which was still a hell of a lot bigger and more powerful than my muscles.)  Our ‘soil’ here is so full of rocks that the only way to dig by hand is with a pickaxe and hoe and a lot of elbow grease.  Even the mini struggled to scrape out a small hole. But this excavator?  Big beautiful bucketloads, woohoo!  Those rocks don’t stand a chance.

This is our fourth year in our ‘new’ place, and while I’ve accomplished a lot of landscaping by hand, there were some projects that were just too big to manage.  F’rinstance, here are before-and-after shots of the rhododendron garden. (The ‘before’ photo comes from the post I linked to above.) I did all the rock and soil fill by hand, and it took a couple of years to show progress:

Back in 2017 when I was just starting to lay out the beds.
Early this spring. (You can still see the snow on the mountains in the background.)
And a few weeks ago in full bloom. (Different angle, though.)

But… here’s a project I just did with the excavator. That embankment is about 4 feet high and full of rocks; and it took me around 10 machine-hours to scrape up the fill, level the garden, and grade/contour afterward:

No chance of me EVER doing that by hand, unless I wanted to make it my life’s work.  (Hint: Nope!) 

I’m getting a bunch of other long-postponed projects done with the machine, too.  More landscaping and grading, some new flowerbeds, lifting deadfall trees off our beleaguered deer fence… the possibilities are endless! 

Better still, even though my first project was a flowerbed only two feet away from the house, I haven’t caused any property damage.  (Well, except for our wheelbarrow, which suffered a permanent curvature of its spine when I had a brain fart at the excavator controls.  But the wheelbarrow still works, so I’m counting it as an ‘oops’, not actual property damage.)

There’s only one flaw in this seemingly-idyllic situation:  I’m far too attached to this machine.  The more I use it, the more I want it.

Yep, I’m power-trippin’.  And when it’s all over and the machine goes away, my withdrawal symptoms will be truly ugly.

But that’s in the future.  Meanwhile, I’ve got more flowerbeds to build!

Anybody else tackling major landscape projects this spring?

Getting Down And Dirty

/ Diane Henders / 32 Comments

Psst!  Lean closer so I can share the latest sordid news from my personal life…

*glances around and lowers voice to a whisper*

Yesterday I had a sweaty four-hour session with five guys, and I’m so sore I can barely walk.  I guess I should just be grateful that the sixth guy with the really big tool didn’t participate much.

The whole experience wasn’t as much fun as the salacious stories say it should be; but maybe I was doing it wrong.

Here’s the photographic evidence:

That’s a 33′ x 83′ pond, about 80,000 Imperial gallons.

Yep, we finally got our pond done! The rubber liner weighs 1300 pounds, so Hubby and I planned the project very carefully.  Then we hired four guys from the local labour pool, and had an excavator operator (the guy with the BIG tool) standing by to place the rocks.

The excavator operator had dug the pond last week, and when I mentioned I’d hired guys from the labour pool to help install the liner, he raised an eyebrow. “Guys who can’t get a steady job in this economy? You’ll end up working harder than they do.”

But he didn’t realize that I have a secret weapon: I’m female, I’m strong, and I work really hard.  There aren’t too many young guys who’ll let a 55-year-old woman show them up.

(Have I mentioned lately that I love young guys?  My strategy doesn’t work nearly so well with older guys — sometimes they just shrug and say, “Nah, knock yourself out.  I’ve got nothing to prove.”)

Anyway, we got a great bunch of labourers — hard workers and nice guys.  We spent four solid hours raking, rolling, and wrestling (yes, I’m still talking about landscaping) to get the liner into place.

Even though Hubby and I had planned everything down to the last detail, we didn’t actually expect it to work the way we’d planned.  But it did — hooray!  Today we’re creaking and groaning a bit, but we’re triumphant.

And I gained a juicy story, so it’s all good. After all, how many middle-aged women can say they’ve gotten down and dirty with five guys at the same time? (And don’t forget the sixth guy with his really big tool.)  😉

Anything juicy happening in your world this week?

Keep Calm And Carry On

/ Diane Henders / 26 Comments

You know how you get organized at the beginning of each week so you can sail through the upcoming days happy and relaxed because everything is under control?

I hope I’m not the only one laughing helplessly right now.

What’s even funnier is that sometimes I actually delude myself into thinking I truly do have everything under control.  That’s when Fate lets out a derisive laugh and upends my plans with unexpected detours, unavoidable delays, and unmet expectations.

I just try to keep calm and carry on. (And sometimes I lie awake stewing for hours in the middle of the night because everybody knows that helps…)

Anyhow, it’s been one of those weeks.  Nothing bad has happened; but every time I’ve tried to get my shit together, it’s ended up hitting the fan.  So since putting together a coherent post is beyond my ability at the moment, here are the highlights of my week in pictures:

Remember how several months ago I was chuckling about the eccentricities of the locals when I saw a woman leading a goat across the Canadian Tire parking lot?  Well, that’s not the only oddball animal on the loose around here.  Last week I was driving through the middle of nowhere when I saw this:

Two peacocks, just hanging out in the middle of the woods. Go figure.

I’m used to seeing deer by the dozens around here, but peacocks were a new sight for me.  And speaking of deer, these cuties were taking their ease right in the middle of town:

Mom and babies weren’t worried even when I walked up about fifteen feet away.

The rest of Canada is already getting snow (yes, Calgary, I’m looking at you with heartfelt sympathy for yesterday’s sixteen inches – blech!), so we’re starting to feel the pressure to get some last-minute gardening done around here.  I’m making slow progress on our landscaping:

Only a few more tons of rock to move. To give you a sense of scale, the post at the far right is almost 5′ tall.

But around here autumn is just starting, and with gorgeous colours like these, I might reconsider my vendetta against the fall season.  Almost.  Kinda.  Maybe…

This golden gorgeousness is a katsura tree, which smells deliciously (and unbelievably) like caramel in the autumn. The beautiful bark behind it is a giant Douglas fir.

How was your week?

Book 14 update:  I managed to squeak into Chapter 20 this week despite the craziness.  Fingers crossed for a more productive upcoming week…