Self-inflicted suffering

Or, at the very least, wife-inflicted.

We spent this past weekend working on the rock garden project again. Bought a half ton of small boulders to complete the terrace walls. Bought another 1.5 cu yds of dirt. We will probably need more.

The Mrs. picked out a cute little 1-person bench with a hummingbird design on it, and I spend Saturday evening digging a footing for it and building a form for the concrete, then Sunday morning puring in the concrete. The Mrs. believes I over-engineered this. I dug down about 16 inches in a rectangle that encompassed the two bench pedestals. I added 50 lbs of gravel in the bottom. Then, I built a wooden form out of 2x6's such that the concrete only comes to the surface directly under the pedestals, and I got it nice and level. I pounded some rebar into the ground through the footings. It took 160 lbs of concrete.

I sure hope it doesn't heave all over this winter.

The watering system is next. I started on that, and got to the point where the next step was "dig 50 foot long trench" and decided to mow the front lawn instead. So I took My Beloved off of My Precious and put the mowing deck back on. I sure hope we don't have anymore blizzards. It had been snowing about 3 times a week for the last month, but none of it ever stuck to the driveway.

When the weekend was done, I was staggering around like a drunken sailor. And not because I'd been drinking. It was because everything hurt so much. Apparently, I got so fat over the winter that unloading two tons of material from the back of a pickup with a wheelbarrow wears me out.

Imagine.