Strong as a bull

The grandson (19 years old) drove over this morning and for the next 1.75 hours, we worked. I had brought the trailer down from the barn to the garden area and tried to get a headstart before he arrived by starting to back the long screws out of the rotting garden box. That box was 17′ long and 4′ wide. Many of the screws just stripped instead of backing out. To also expedite our destruction, I drove the tractor down from the barn and shifted the broken rubble from the destroyed chicken tractor that has sat under one of the apple trees with several years of grass growing up through it.

The wooden box was behind the black bed with the tomatoes in it. Once he arrived, he took the sledge hammer to it and broke the long sides off of the short sides and our day began. The short sides were loaded in the trailer, the long one brought over to the house where they could be cut in thirds with the circular saw, then they also were loaded. The trailer was then relocated closer to the rubble pile and we “Tetris” fit about a dozen cedar posts we had cut from young trees on the farm and stripped of branched to make up the base for the chicken tractor when we realized it could be breached and 9 chicks killed. The base was raised off the ground on large rocks, the cedar posts anchored together, a thick layer of soil on top, then the chicken tractor lifted on top and all spaces of potential access filled with large rocks. This worked for a while, then a strong windstorm toppled it and as the chicken tractor was made primarily of reclaimed wood, it was destroyed. The rocks were removed, the cedar posts stacked under the tree, and the plan to try to remove the hardware cloth. The task overwhelmed me each time I decided to tackle it and the grass started growing up through the mesh. It made mowing that area quite difficult and though it got weed whacked occassionally, it was an unsightly mess.

We filled the trailer to the top with rotting wood, hardware cloth, and the metal top panels, lashed it down tight and drove it to the “convenience center,” where the dumpsters and dump trailers are placed for us to take our garbage, trash, and recyclables. We managed to get it done before the temperature got unbearable. It eventually reached 89 f today.

The teen was well paid, fed lunch, and sent home. Daughter texted later and said I had worn the teen out. Wore his grandmom out as well.

We waited until after dinner, when the thermometer dropped to 85 to go take our walk. Tommorrow is a repeat as far as the weather, but no heavy work is planned. The area where the box was removed and to the left of it still needs cleaning up to plant the three sisters mounds, hoping to get popcorn, some dried beans, gourds and pie pumpkins out of that otherwide unused part of the garden. And the area where the rubble was removed needs to be raked to make sure we didn’t leave any boards with staples, nails, or screws that might puncture a foot or mower tire. It will cool back down in a few days and those tasks can be tackled.