The Garden Project - Part 2 (Memorial Day Weekend Blitz)

On Friday night we decided to stop talking about our future garden and to make it so. Okay, so maybe we were moved to action by watching our neighbors put together a raised garden bed in a matter of hours and we felt a little one-upped. This is the way it has been with them - just ask Michael why he started finishing our basement (yup - neighbor started, too). You can see the competition here:
So, I rented a tiller for 4-hours and we took advantage of the 70-degree afternoon to churn up 1000 square feet of our lower yard that had choppy, uneven grass anyway (seed-spreading was obviously not the forte of the construction crew that finished our house last year). The plan was to somehow incorporate the plumbing line jutting out in the middle of the yard, the azalea, and the poplar - all three creating a nice triangle. We figured if we went the trouble to till the sod, there was no turning back.
First we had this...
And Michael in all his brute-strength glory turned it into this...
We had watched the sun's path for a few weeks and determined that the best place for our raised beds would be on the left hand side of our property line. We debated the sized of the beds, but finally decided to start with three 3'x6' beds with 2' in between each. We spend the rest of the evening staking out the corners and turned to our next project - trimming the crab apple tree that had innumerable "watersprouts" and "suckers." Michael quickly hopped up the tree branches to trim down the wayward shoots growing up along it's branches. Mason and Kenzie weren't interested in helping and just laid there looking cute.
The base of the tree had long been neglected and I didn't really know what to do with it. Michael finally convinced me to get over my hatred of hostas, since they are the perfect shade-loving perennial and would look great grouped around the base. Yeah, he was right.
On Saturday morning, we were awoken at 6am by our dear children, but we wasted no time since the day was going to be 80+ degrees. The first order of business was to have a truck load of mulch delivered to the house from a local vendor who was willing to do so on a weekend. Needless to say, Mason's mind was blown. Next up, Michael headed out to do a 2.5 hour bike ride and I trekked out to Leicester to pick up some soil amendments for my garden beds from Double G Ranch. After driving 45 minutes to the upper reaches of Buncombe County (40 minutes of which the kids slept), I found that they are not a retailer and only sell if you've pre-ordered. Yup - might have been better to call first, but at least it was a pretty drive. They told me there was a retailer in Asheville, called Eagle Dove Greenhouse, who sold the same brand and they were conveniently located on Swannanoa River Rd (a stone's throw from Lowe's). They seemed very happy to have some visitors and I was happy to see that they had the compost and worm castings that I needed. I perused the rest of their greenhouse offerings, while Mason played with the gravel walkway (they even showed him the 3-day and 3-week old chicks they had in their office). I found some nice blueberry bushes and we had thought that those would be a great addition to the garden beds, too. So I picked up four (again, no turning back), so that I could have something to show for the long trip. I got two different varieties - the Patriot and the Blueray - as they recommended for cross-pollination and disease resistance.
On Sunday morning, we were again woken up at 6am by our dear children, but we had big plans for a family outing at Lowe's, so there was no sleeping in! We all loaded up in the car and headed out. At Lowe's we needed pine for the raised beds (we decided that even though it would rot in 3-5 years, it would work), six hostas, cedar for the trellises, and some coneflowers and other perennials to surround the plumbing line (and hide eventually). Once we arrived back home, Michael quickly set to work while I occupied the kids in the house - away from the relentless heat, lucky me. After Mason and Kenzie went down for their naps, we both hit the grindstone. Michael worked on building the beds and the trellises and I planted the hostas.
By Monday, we were almost ready to wrap everything up. I went to Lowe's to pick up a load of soil to fill the beds, while Michael leveled the ground and set them up. I was schlepping one kid on my back and the other was riding on the cart along with the 10 bags of soil and compost. It was quite a sight. We quickly figured out that my meager load wouldn't fill the beds and both Michael and I had to do another trek to Ingles to get another 14 bags of top soil and peat moss for the blueberry bushes (bringing my grand planting total to 18). Of course, it isn't a gardening project unless you dig up some random bits of junk:
And so we wrapped up about half of our gardening...now for getting the actual vegetables for the garden, spreading the mulch, choosing more flora to fill out the rest of the bed (I'm thinking at least three oak leaf hydrangea), maybe building a picnic table and getting a fire pit. Easy!

Kenzie - Month 5

Last night, Kenzie woke up crying - as she usually does about an hour after we put her down for the night - so I trudged upstairs to find a little boy sitting up next to her in our bed. Little sneak. Mason and Kenzie are fast becoming buddies. Her face lights up first thing in the morning when she sees his. Then she squeals what sounds like a "Hiiiiiiiyyyeeeeeee." She is quite the vocalist.
Big news this month is we started her on solid foods. She had seemed pretty interested for several weeks - verily salivating while she watched us eat dinner every night, so I figured why not? After chomping down on the first spoonful of rice cereal (almost nabbing a few of my fingers in the process), I knew this would be easy. Mason was a bit finicky at first - so much so that we took a break from food for several weeks because he was so apathetic and really went full throttle after he was six months old. There is no turning back for this lady. We have already tried bananas (not so keen) and sweet potatoes (again, barely survived with my hands intact).
She is very adept at her pushups and just starting to pick her belly up off of the floor, too. She is even sitting upright without much help, though her back muscles do give out now and then and she flops onto her face (case in point: this afternoon on the porch when daddy just sat there and watched it happen - yet had the time to think to himself "that's gonna cause some tears.")
She weighed in at 17.3 lbs at her four-month appointment, which steadily places her in the 96th percentile - or on par with a 7-8 month old. She is full-on roly-poly. She took her immunizations like a champ and only cried for maybe 30 seconds. I suppose she's going to have to learn to be tough to keep up with the little man of the house. She already has to defend herself from constant kisses and hugs, "falling" - where Mason grabs her and they both fall over together, and when he decides to lay on top of her. I constantly ask him "can she breathe?" as a warning to him to remove his arm/leg/foot/hand from over her mouth and nose. He doesn't quite get what that means, though.
We've pulled out a few beginner "books" for her already - meaning those that she can slobber all over without damaging. The 'Rainbow Fish' book was a favorite of Mason's for a long time and now it is bestowed upon her. All of the teething toys and stuffed beans and bananas have come out, too, since all she wants to do is gum everything. Oh the fun is just beginning!