We left our story with an alley jammed full of compost.
I’d blocked off a good fifty feet of curbside on the street with garbage bins. He had plenty of room to maneuver. He parked at the curb and began backing up until he was about five feet away from a shiny Toyota. “You could pull up a little, if you want,” I said, helpfully, but Rick didn’t want, and he started to lift the bed skyward, and soil started to blop out onto the curb. The truck bed had to get pretty high to dump it all, and I saw the reasoning behind his position: there were three power lines going across the street and he had to avoid hitting them.
I’m happy he thought of it. One time a truck driver dropped off a dumpster at the head of the street and then drove off without lowering his hydraulic apparatus and proceeded to rip out every power line for two blocks. Sparks flew, neighbors ran after him yelling, and on and on he went like a heedless Brachiosaur at the head of a parade.
Anyway, the soil shlumped down in a gigantic neat pile within two feet of the Toyota. Rick got out to check, and then got back in the cab, threw it into reverse, and gunned it for one nanosecond, dislodging the remainder of my compost.
“You scared me,” I said. “I thought you were going to bury that Toyota!”
Rick grinned wickedly. “I could,” he drawled. This is clearly the foundation of his cheer. If you’re in his way he can the hell move you. If you don’t want to be moved he can the hell bury you. He and his Big Ass truck hove off happily—even the truck was whistling a merry tune–and left me to it.
Fun! Nine yards of compost to redistribute. Unfortunately, it is fast approaching winter, it’s now 3pm, and daylight is in shorter supply. I had to do triage.
I started on the street pile, removing the parts that shlorped onto the sidewalk and taking a couple feet off the part intruding on traffic. But people could still drive by. I went back to the alley side in deep dusk. That seemed the priority: get the pile out of the alley in case anyone wanted to drive through.
Well that wasn’t going to happen before dark. A man walking his dog happened by and assured me he could walk on the far side of the pile, but was soon grabbed and shaken by a rogue blackberry vine that also stole his wallet and made fun of him on the internet. My path was clear: clear the path. I excavated enough of the pile that a narrowly-constructed pedestrian could get past on our side. That was all I could do.
Later that evening I fretted. There’s a streetlight in the alley—one—but was it enough to illuminate the pile? The big, black pile? What if someone decided to take the alley at excessive speed? It seemed possible he would be buried up to his fourth cupholder in steaming compost.
Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, which is unkempt and windswept, was a memory of a bright orange safety cone in our basement. I should put that cone out in front of the pile! At least in one direction. I went downstairs. I found it. It was Pootie’s safety cone. It is four inches high.
Hell, I thought. If someone is coming down our alley fast enough to not notice the big black wall, they deserve to be buried. I could use a new car. Even if I have to pluck it out of a steaming pile of compost, it would be cleaner than my car.
Precision dump trucking is an impressive art form, for sure. Your single day progress of compost distribution is also quite impressive. Takes me the better part of a week to spread half that much.
It usually does me too, when I’m distributing to garden beds, because I have to clear and weed and whatnot with every other barrowful. But this was straight “cover the cardboard” territory. It actually took two days.
Murr… I admire what you do in your yard. I know it’s not a big one. But you are always saying how lazy you are, and I don’t see that. Maybe you are just SELECTIVELY lazy. You seem to be able to do all this stuff OUTSIDE. But inside is not your forte. Whereas for me, I prefer the indoor stuff, like cooking and cleaning. I used to do outdoor stuff, but mosquitoes in the summer, and arthritis since a few months ago has pretty much put the kibosh on that. Thankfully, Paul is younger than I, doesn’t have arthritis, and mosquitoes ignore him completely. So HE does all the outdoor stuff now. I DO go out in the Spring, but that is pretty much the extent of it. Anyway, I love hearing about all this gardening stuff, and please keep us apprised of how this project is going. I got the Ruth Stout book from the library that someone mentioned in your last post. I very much liked it, and ordered one of her other books from Amazon (as the library didn’t carry it.) She’s a great read for “the aging, the busy, and the indolent.” I’m all three.
i do most of my stuff in the house, actually. It’s just that a lot of it doesn’t involve cleaning. AND we don’t have mosquitoes, to speak of, and I go inside if it gets above about 83. Um, not that we have air conditioning…
Damn Murr!! Nine cubic yards!! The largest amount of mulch we have ever had delivered is two cubic yards and that nearly kills us to clearing one afternoon!
You need someone younger to help, Steve. Such as me.
On the ninth day of compost my true love gave to me – nine cubic yards, eight sidewalks covered, seven alleys loaded, six weary shoulders, fiiiiive aching backs, four barrows full, three new spades, two garden dreams, and a dump truck driver smarter than me.
So good. I love a good lord a-leapin’ but those drummers drumming were getting on my nerves.
!!!
To date how many Twelve Days of Christmas lyrics have you written/photo illustrated?
Beth
I’ll answer this honestly. One. I did a partridge in a pear tree for a Christmas card once. Like, 30 years ago.
Love Roxie Matthews up there^
Rick and his truck are the perfect team.
I’d love to have a garden large enough to need mulching and composting, but I’d need help with it for sure, so I’ll stick with what I have.
You should meet Roxie in person. Roxie is a trip.
A fine denoeument (knew the word but had to look up the spelling) Murr!!!!!! (Can we hope for a Season 3?)
Yet I spelled it wrong anyway 🙁
I wasn’t going to say. Season 3 will come in the spring when we discover if that law really died and we can really plant something new.
We are very behind. Since Alyssa and Christopher have taken on alot of the duties I have slacked off. We did 9 yards of compost and 12 yards of gravel a few. years ago… like many years I bet. We did it one yard at a time because that is what our trailer held. I do better with mulch than gravel. I know how many wheelbarrow loads are in a load and just about how long it should take. I have learned the hard way that the deeper the mulch and the deeper the gravel the longer it lasts. That and leaves over cardboard.
We can get two yards in our old truck but when we gave it to our neighbor that option is off the table. Not really–he’ll lend it to me whenever I want, but there was a reason I wanted to get rid of that truck. I’ll stick with Rick!
Excellent post, I conceive site owners need to learn a whole lot from this site it’s really user friendly…
I spatchcock your snappitude.
I once needed the butcher to spatchcock a chicken and he was chuckling as he was wrapping it up. He said it reminded him of a time he ate dinner in a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere France. An American couple asked for half a rabbit. It came to the table, just the front HALF, with front legs outstretched as if it had been killed as it tried to run away. The couple were taken aback when they saw it. And the rabbit reminds me of a movie that I love: Local Hero. Old now but still lovely.