Working on the Gardens

This weekend we purchased a small cultivator to get to work on the new portions of the gardens. We thought that we would probably need to rent a tiller a couple times a year, so it made more sense to get a small one, and we were able to find a little electric model that won't take up too much precious space in the garage.

Last fall I covered the area between the existing garden and the shrubs along the side of the garage with newspapers (about three big stacks of Buchtelite newspapers from the college) and soil from my container gardens, adding about another 100 square feet. We also created a new patch up the hill for the asparagus patch. Then all was covered with chopped up leaves. (We had plenty of leaves for the project!)

Below is the start of the asparagus patch before Richard tilled it today.

Here's what the extended garden looks like from the top of the hill behind our house:

Richard used the cultivator to turn the new section over. The newspaper really did the trick to kill the grass so we didn't need to pull up the sod this year.

Here's Richard totally over-acting. He wanted the world to know that he worked very hard today!

But really, it was quite a job. We now have lots of buckets of rocks. As we found out last year, our soil is primarily clay and rocks. Really big rocks.

Our next project is to spread the cow manure on the new portions of the gardens, but we'll spare you all the pictures of that!

Kitty Pics

Here's some new pictures of the cats, for anyone who is interested. Richard has been trying to get pictures of each cat that captures their individual personalities so he can turn them into portraits like he did for Q last year.

Here's Scout. She doesn't sit still for very long, so we got lots of action shots of her. Here she's showing off how tall she is and she's showing her white spots which are usually hidden:

Here's a more serene picture of Scout. She's in the $40 bed we bought months ago that the cats avoided like the plague. How did we get the cats to sleep in the bed? We took out the cushion. Who knew a bed could be too plush?


Below is the picture of Monkey. She's posing in front of the portrait Richard made of Q. Isn't she a pretty cat? It's a shame that such a plush kitty doesn't let us hold her! In front of her you will notice her favorite toy. She loves these little soft rubber balls we got at Target. They bounce really well...

And then there's Buttercup... She's the princess and doesn't ever let us forget it! Definite kitty royalty going on here...

Finally, here's one more of Scout. It's our "shout out" to Sharon, who also has a kitty (Charlie Brown) that has also taken a liking to sitting in the sink.

I guess a $40 pet bed can't compete with a shell-shaped sink. Priceless!