7-4-2016
We stayed home and caught up with some projects. My wife Anita bought some Lily of the Valley and some Cala Lily bulbs that we've been meaning to plant, so that's what we did. I planted the Cala Lily under the Dogwood tree, Anita planted the LOTV on the other side of the house (the shady side). Before I did any planting, I built a larger bed around the tree and used some rockery rocks that used to be around a tree that we had cut down a few years ago. I leveled off the bed because there was an odd high spot just in front of the tree, plus the fact that the bed needed to be ground level and not burying part of the tree trunk. When I started digging into the high spot, I found some strange things. First were several rockery type rocks of various sizes. Some were so old they broke apart when I tried to dig them up. Then I kept hitting something made of wood. My mind was thinking buried treasure, or maybe some hillbillies buried their kin and it was a casket (I've traced the property ownership as far back as the late 1800s). Turned out it was just a large root ball from a tree long gone. I did find a couple of Hot Wheel cars, so I thought maybe it was a time capsule. I showed them to Anita, she said when the neighbor kids behind us were little (they're adults now), they would sometimes throw their toys over the fence.
It was a good 6-8 hours worth of work, but I had fun, just took my time and did things my way. Good thing I like doing this sort of thing on the fly. If I had been going by written instructions with a list of materials, diagrams, time estimate, etc, I would never have done it.
P.S. I forgot to tell you about the soil I put in. I call it "leftovers". I used what we had on hand. I had a garbage can half full of used potting soil, 2 bags of top soil, and a bag of organic soil amendment with 15% chicken manure. I didn't know what to do with the used potting soil, but from what I read online, it's ok to reuse it, plus I was tired of moving the bags every time I needed the lawn mower, so they all went in the mix. Tilled them in with a "weasel" claw and raked it out, then did the planting. Time will tell if it's a good recipe.
