Some Before Pictures

I have two brothers and they are both pretty amazing men.  I refer to them as "Rock Doc" and "Tree Doc".  One is a geologist who writes books ~ some of which I have read and a few of which I even understood.  Somewhat.  The Tree Doc states that he is more of a tree-mortician, but we won't get into the sibling semantic squabbles.  The point is that he does tree work for a living and as a result has (drum-roll, please) the much-longed-for wood chips.

We asked him if he could possibly spare a load, and boy did he ever come through.  He sent one of his men to our home with a dump-truck loaded FULL of wood chips.  We were so excited! 

Well.  He TRIED to send one of his men to our home.  You see, our house is perched up on top of a hill.  The road up our hill is not a municipal road, it is a private road.  Because it is not state or county built and maintained, those pesky regulations about incline don't matter.  So it is very steep.  Remember Junior's attempts to get home in the snowstorm?  When the young man started the dump truck up the hill, he got stuck less than halfway up.  He tried; he really did, but that poor truck just couldn't do it (I think someone forgot to feed the squirrels that morning) (If you are family, you understand that oblique statement).  So he backed down the hill and tried again with a running start this time.  Nope.  Could not be done.  I checked with the neighbors and we decided that he could dump the load at the bottom of the hill.  We have a nice, large grassy area off the right-of-way and as long as we don't interfere with Sandra's flower garden all is well.  So the very nice young man dumped a load of wood chips and headed back to work.

Well.  There we were.  A load of much desired wood chips.  At the bottom of the hill.  No worries. Remember?  I have Little Red(neck) truck and two Mr. Marvelouses (that is the plural, right?).  Guess how we spent most of Memorial Day weekend? 

I missed the opportunity to take a picture of Wood Chip Mountain, but I did get before and after pictures of how we used them.  Now that the story is finished, here are some pictures of our Pre-Wood-Chipped-Garden:

This year's front garden peas

 This is where the sweet potatoes are going

The Spring Potato Crop

 This is how it looks when I stand over by the grape vines.

Pretty bad, isn't it?

 We can't make ourselves get rid of these daisies

 ARTICHOKES!!!

Over by the chicken pen we mowed down the non-productive blueberry bushes.

We'll try melons over there this year

 Here are all our favorite squash plants.  Remember them?

 We had some left-over hay for the tomato plants.

Have I mentioned that Mr. Marvelous planted SIXTY tomato plants this year?!

Help!

 Cucumbers.  I have to be careful not to trip over them when I am hanging out clothes

 We finally got the beans planted.

 And more beans

 This was going to be the second artichoke bed.

Somehow it has become the second squash bed.  Hmm.

And that's what we have had so far.  Stay tuned.  We got it looking a whole lot better.

Thanks to my amazing brother!