Dirt Cheap

Dirt.

That is my funny for the day. After pulling straight As with a grueling schedule and less sleep than imaginable, Sam was in desperate need of getting to work. His favorite kind of work.

He finished the garden boxes

Found some cheap, but good, delivered dirt. 

Cause 20 yards won't fit in the back of his Corrolla. 

Got the children and some friends to haul buckets with abandon. 

And utilized a couple of his scouts ...

And then planted the day away.

Zackary does have a garden box and did plant.

I have no idea why I don't have a photo of the two in all

their dirt and glory. I'll have to rectify that!

And Malachi has a sunflower seed that he has loved and watered to drowning death. 

But the point of this wasn't perfection. 

It was ownership, responsibility, exploration, and experimentation!

And then his microscopic break was over and he is back at it full force. With his first actuary test nearing to boot. 

Oh, I almost forgot ... broken drainage pipes that went unnoticed for several months (thanks super chill winter) meant that our retaining wall caved in and settled to the point that our porch was no longer legal (and quite dangerous) and we had major erosion effecting the foundation. Yep. So he also built a new wall and mucho dirto went toward making the porch something that the neighbors won't report us for ... cause they are just so ... and that children will not plummet to their death from. Kind of important. 

Anywho, we are all prettied up now and babying all our new plants so they will take root and hold all the new dirt in place. We pray for them. Cause you know we didn't have the money to throw at this right now. It has got to work. 

Thankfully we have a master gardener friend that has supplied us with cuttings after he thins his gardens over the years. It helped a lot to have several well established plants with hefty root systems! It could have been much worse had those strategically placed babies not thrived for the past couple of years. The Rose of Sharon (off the corner of the porch in the new wall) was left for dead but he thought we might be able to revive it. After a few days in a bucket of water we noticed one ity bity leaf and had a party. We hedged our bets and planted it hoping to give it the best shot we could. We are now happy to report many ity bity leaves and some teenagers too! Sure enough as the days go by with faithful watering those leaves are climbing further and further and we are hopeful that we won't have prune any dead branches. 

As for the two truly dead looking trees in the pot. We aren't so hopeful about those castaways. But we offered good soil and keep watering, just in case ... they are mystery trees so the excitement keeps us diligent. 

We still have dirt. Sam is convinced it is multiplying. Like rabbits.