Hm on taking wake-up creatine today what I had first noticed swimming on Thursday as a stitch in my side flared up to hurt a lot but then receded I guess as processes that made it tight and irritated were empowered faster than ones that loosened and buffered it

So yeah I should really take a few more rest days until that disappears. You’re starting to see intimations of the coming of fall, its definitely the rainy season by the end of October but I’d like to wrap up by mid-September by the latest, but I probably have at least one or two days of physically undemanding work laying out the wire holding the Blueberry Hill retaining wall in I can do before I get back to pitching.

Okay, four and a half yards of four-way out, just one and a half more to fill in Blueberry Hill, then at least 6 topsoil and one each of bark nuggets and wood chips. Dunno if I’ll do any tomorrow, want to be fresh for a Saturday afternoon pinball match, now off to the pool, which closes next Sunday.

Hm.

I was literally like “well shit, if I’m not doing topsoil today I have time to go to the landscaping yard and get some topsoil”

Spread out another yard and a half of topsoil. Darwin’s bed can take that (but hoo does the mass affect his performance) but really I think one yard a day is good.

The key is I can be a lot sloppier than mulch getting it out of the bed and into my barrow if I park Darwin so any spills are somewhere I want to fill in anyway.

Think the whole side yard might take as little as 6 more yards, had been expecting at least 12 more.

Okay got my first load of topsoil to fill in Blueberry Hill and Strawberry Ridge. It’s heavier, and I think I could fit a whole yard and a half of it in Darwin’s bed. That said I definitely could not do two loads of even a single yard in a day, this stuff wears me out. Not pain like from mulch pitching, I can’t even get the pitching shovel down to lever up much, but the kind of full-body wiped you get from swimming in water.

Okay I was kind of rushing to get stuff before the fence guy, cause while my existing one was in ruins there were two neighbors I was kinda letting down, things gonna be a bit more chill for the rest of the summer, next up is getting topsoil to fill out Blueberry Hill and Strawberry Ridge, and some more indoor cleaning.

Alright there was some medium-light rain – we’d had some drizzling when the air was thick with soot but this is the first real moisture since the real rainy season stopped, nothing like this last year – but the landscaping yard’s closed Sunday (well, only open in the morning for professional crews coming in to worksites) so no work planned to interrupt.

So, I started extending the ditch along the other edge of Strawberry Ridge – not digging it as deep, this is next to the trail and I don’t want anyone to step in and twist an ankle.

Also I prepared to stake retaining wire grid over part of the back retaining wall of Blueberry Hill and prepared some coconut coir to place there to try to hold on to any moisture that way, also I set up a weight bench and plate rack in the lower backyard, that’s gonna replace the basement for my weight stuff.

Okay! Planted both the first two blueberry bushes (Toro and Draper), which involved digging out some sandy soil along where one of my drainage ditches is and replacing the bank itself with coconut coir, which absorbs and retains water excellently, and then lining the hole and packing in with garden compost.

Okay went to transplant those annuals and realized it’s a thing where there’s like clusters of bulbs down there each supporting two leaves and a flower, and I took out one cluster one-by-one keeping their roots from ripping and I had like 11 reasonable-sized ones and one big one and I’m like okay what the hell do I do with this.

And I realize my trying to save these specific flowers is maybe old personality hoarder instinct and I can just get whatever plants I want at the nursery after I get the yard redone.

So fuck it, gonna scrap them. Also retrieved some wood from Strawberry Ridge that was too thick buried too shallow and cut it up for the side fill of Blueberry Hill.

So tomorrow planting the first blueberries, got some coconut coir to mix with compost for water retention in one site.

Okay, productive day yard-wise: fully planted and backfilled the lavender, mowed the lower backyard now that it’s finally squared away, realized there’s a better way to deploy the wood and composting greens with Blueberry Hill to still make use of them but just finish up the dugout shell by dumping topsoil from the landscaping yard in it.

So next might grab a load of mulch and refresh my beds and trees for the year, pot those annuals, but then finally on to secure the Blueberry Hill retaining wall and clear the last of the downhill bamboo patch, the last things from my winter Yard Task Updates.

Alright, lower backyard is fully ready for the last pre-dry season trim, then finished digging the hole for all this lavender under my sittin’ window (need more topsoil tomorrow tho).

Then it seems the woodchips jamming Darwin’s tailgate finally rotted enough to open it, that’ll make it easier getting bedloads of mulch and of topsoil for finishing Blueberry Hill.

So tomorrow mowing, potting some doomed annuals to save, finish lavender planting, then finally on to the retaining slope of Blueberry Hill and planting these first few bushes.

Good teeth cleaning, then went to the nursery for some pots, soil, lavender, and the first blueberries, and scouted for the future strawberries and trees.

Okay, carted all the “firewood” except stuff pretty thin or dry-cracked and easily splittable to Blueberry Hill and tossed them in the valley where the last smashing that wasn’t in the “dugout” had been, sorted the longer stuff I could possibly use and piled the rest to be cut up for the last part of [above]. Then yet more grass pulling, then some more shaping shoots, there’s some stuff off the smoke bush standard that if it works out that one trunk will have a woven basket emerging around it for lower branches to grow out of. Then hauling around some of the bigger felled mimosa logs to serve as the back lip of Blueberry Hill and impound fallen stuff there.

Tomorrow clearing more wood out of the lower backyard so I can snap a photo of how clear it is, but I might actually have some shopping to do.

Okay, more picking off crap grass, four buckets of it, also some chopping some thin branches up into debris kibble, and realizing a lot of the “firewood” I’ve been husbanding is really too thick to burn intact but a bitch to split, so if I really want to make good use of these fruits of the yard I can just dump them in a depression to the side of Blueberry Hill to rot over 5 years.

Tomorrow the last of that, using staples to shape some branches’ growth around trunks, and preparing some planters to receive some plants currently in areas that’re gonna be landscaped away.

Alright, three buckets of grass weeding, mowed the upper backyard and poured the clippings on Blueberry Hill.

Alright, tidied up the yards in preparation for mowing, mowed the side yard and dumped the clippings on the Blueberry Hill wood, FINALLY FINISHED THE SMASHING, noticed that the long grass had been hiding some seafoam that had progressed as far as the yellow spiky stage, did a pass for it, it was still warm after dark so put on my headlamp and found it made it even easier to make out characteristics distinguishing grass species and did some more filtering on that.

Have to finish mowing and seafoam hunting tomorrow, then… ah, fuck it, I’ll figure out later.

kontextmaschine:

kontextmaschine:

Okay, the grass is long enough I can recognize species at a glance by blade or form or color, so thinning it out before I mow, took out a lot of bunchgrasses, spikegrasses, and beachgrasses, not to mention a few stray deadnettles, some clover I wiped out last year but not before it set seed, and seafoam is back, that’s the real tiny stuff. No more bittercress, though.

Taking a break for some salmon rice and I’ll be back out.

Alright, got several bucketloads and dumped them on the ramp which now isn’t draining into a matrix of twigs so much as shrinking from drying.

Then built almost all of the next bonfire, the lower backyard’s really clear now.

So next is

• getting mud for the retaining wall
• finishing and burning the fire
• stringing a rope to block a gap in the fence with a tarp
• mowing the grass

then once it’s short

• hunting for seafoam

Oh, and

• smashing up that last inch of Blueberry Hill,

of course

Alright, cleaned out last night’s fire and set up the framework for the next one’s firewood, then gathered up ALL loose wood for one last scrap load for the Blueberry Hill dugout.

I don’t think the lower yard’s been clear of loose branches for 7 years, seems bigger than it used to.

Did a lot more grass filtering, pulling the low-quality stuff where something better’s ready to fill in.

Near future is to mow the yards and dump the clippings on the dugout wood, then dig more dirt out of the buried ramp, wet into mud and refill between stones of the retaining wall, then drape the wire mesh over it and hammer staples in, then get a load of dirt and mud it over, then plant alpine strawberry starts to start putting out runners.

Okay, finished building the bonfire, cleaned up the remaining wood in the side yard, put all the smashed-up stuff in the Blueberry Hill “dugout” shell, started weeding the top backyard and didn’t even finish – there’s an area where bunchgrasses took over where I cleared out moss years ago, and it’s tall enough to distinguish now so I took a ton of those out.

Next step is shoring up the Blueberry Hill retaining wall, for that and some other stuff might have to get a bedload of soil from the landscaping yard. Then the outside’s done for a while and I can return to the inside.

Feeling dry, dunno if it’s the dry season yet or just teasing its imminent arrival.