Hello dear reader! Welcome back to the farm! We are so happy you’ve stopped by for a visit!
Blessed with gifts
We made a run to our local Co-Op organic grocery store (Sevananda for those who are familiar with Atlanta and Little 5 Points in particular) for a few items, and on our way back home we noticed that a neighbor was having a tree removed.
Spider pulled over and I ran up to the tree guys and asked if we could have the wood chips. Score!!! Free wood chips for our project!
We had this done once before in 2008 after Atlanta had a huge tornado come through and took out a bunch of Oaks around the area. Back then, they dumped the load of wood chips at the top of our driveway. This was great because it was out of the way and close to our back gate. Easy hauling.
Well this time, they couldn’t do that because their truck would have hit the trees that have grown over our driveway since then. So they dumped the whole load on the street in front of our house!
Spider had the great idea of grabbing a shovel and the leaf blower and moving the exterior of the pile so that it only took up as much room as if a car were parked there. Brilliant! Now the pile isn’t all the way to the middle of the street and the neighbors can’t complain!
Remember how I told you in an earlier post about how expensive tools are? Like over $100 for a wheelbarrow? Yeah, so we don’t currently have a wheelbarrow, but Spider remembered that we had one of those fold up grocery carts that you usually use at the beach, up in our attic. So we threw a tarp in it and used it to haul the wood chips to the back yard.
Making paths
Remember how I told you about all the rain we had gotten between tillings? Well, when we get rain like that, it cuts a path of water through the yard. For years I always thought it would be cool if that were a creek. Also, we didn’t want that rush of water to wash out the garden, so we decided to divert it. We used the basic path that the water made, but directed it away from the garden.
We finally have a creek! Well, a creek bed at least. Using a hoe, I carved out a path that starts shallow at the top and ends deeper at the bottom. Then with all of the wood chips we dug out of the pile and rolled to the back, I made a berm on each side of the creek bed. Eventually. it will be lined with rocks, which we are still collecting.
We posted on our neighborhood pages asking if anyone had any rocks, bricks or pavers they were getting rid of. We had a couple of people respond, so we will be getting some of all of these things!
There is now a path leading through the side yard to the gate into the back. We also made some paths winding through the space with wood chips too. There is a little stone step crossing at the bottom of the creek bed so it’s easier to walk across when it has been raining.
Thanks for checking in, we are so excited to share our progress with you! If you’d like to help support our project, you can donate here, or click on the logo below.
Love, Spider & Rain
Click on the logo below to go to the fundraiser 👨🌾
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