…Real Friends Help you move the Bodies!
It’s true! Well, we may not have any bodies to move, but out here on Pair-O-Dykes Ranch there is no shortage of other things to move, rake, dig, sift, sort and clean.
Some good friends came by last week to help out. We are doing a little barter. With the economy like it is, nobody has money for the wants when they’re so busy keeping up with their needs. You can guess what that means to a tattoo artist.
The Tat biz is dooooown (emphasis on the “ow”!) So these friends of mine who also happen to be ink clients are as strapped for cash as I am, and they want new ink as bad as I want help around this place!
I know I haven’t exactly been completely… ahem…forthcoming with you guys… I mean, you know I live on 40 acres of desert, and you probably get that me n the GirlyBoi aren’t exactly flush, but you have no idea of the full extent of the work that needs done around here just to make it pretty for me let alone if I’m ever gonna get my Spiritual Retreat together. So now I’m going to show you just how nuts I really am. And what a freak I am about the environment, about recycling and reusing. About not letting anything go to waste!!!
Here’s just one of the many projects that need doing:
See that sandy – woody pile with weeds growing in it? That was 2 freaking dumptruck-loads of wood chips from a tree and firewood service that were delivered 3 years ago! (twenty bucks a load, baybee!!) Now, I’m all about working smarter, not harder, but let me tell you my GirlyBoi takes that philosophy to a whole new level! I knew that as many uses as I have for those damn wood chips that 1), that was a whole lotta wood chips and 2), they would need to be worked in order to use them. I wanted them dumped somewhere out of the way, where I could bring them up to the yard areas as needed.
But NooooOOOooo… the GirlyBoi just had to have them dumped smack dab in the middle of the front yard so that she didn’t have to haul them up here as I need them.
Wood chips have a bunch of great uses. The thing is, this lot is a mixture of what one would call “chips”, landscaping bark sized “chunks” and small pieces of firewood kindling! I can’t just shovel it around all funky lookin’ like that! Doesn’t that GirlyBoi understand that I’m an artist?! That the aesthetics of my demesne must be attractive to the eye and pleasing to the senses??
And do I really give a shit if she has to hump a few wagon-loads up here for me every weekend?
Buahahaha!
Well, these days I don’t, but I guess I was nicer back then, cuz here they are, smack dab in the middle of the freaking front yard; that evil little butch-o-mine got her way, again! (And what is it anyway with the Truck always needing work when I want her help in the yard? Hahaha)
So anyway, the smallest “chips” are great for adding organic matter to flower and vegetable garden beds or for dressing the tops of flower beds to help prevent water evaporation here in the desert as well as looking nice around my flowers and even my little cactii.
The bark-sized chunks are perfect for putting around the trees for the same purposes, and beat the hell out of buying landscape bark! Unless you’re buying that Recycled Tire Bark, you should probably check out where your bark comes from. Too much of it comes from old growth forests and destroys the ecosystems there.
We have used the bigger pieces for fireplace kindling, cook-outs and sacred fires for ritual and gatherings.
But three years later I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of that damned pile! This year it’s gotta go! I’m tired of stumbling over the chunks in my little section of “yard” and besides; there’s lotsa good mulch under there.
So we shovel and sift:
The “sifter” is diamond hardware cloth on a 2″x4″ frame that fits atop my wagon. We toss the chips n chunks onto the sifter by the shovel-full, then shuffle them around by hand (with gloves! 2 years ago I got bitten by a Desert Recluse!), so that the small pieces fall through. Kristen is shuffling, while Mike dumps the larger chunks into the aviary to make a nice ground mulch for my birdies.
When the wagon is full we’re dumping it in the veggie garden raised beds that we don’t use in the summer here in our desert, and mixing it to let it compost a bit. We also spread about 4″ atop the asparagus bed.
Lest you think that I’m letting my friends do all the work, here’s me, in my usual mode of dress here at the old home place: a skirt and work-boots:
And don’t give me any feminist crap about my skirt. This is what this feminist looks like. Hehehe. It’s true; I wear skirts and dresses almost exclusively. Thorne doesn’t do pants. A skirt is about as close as I can get in public to bein’ nekkid and that’s the way I like it. Anybody got a problem with that?
Well, that’s a day in the life at Pair-O-Dykes Ranch!
Peace, out!
recycled) containers in the winter, to be ready to sow in the garden when the ground is nice and warm. They also offer a free (SASE) sample of their heirloom seed collection. It’s pretty cool.
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