Men At Work

Is there anything better than a man at work? 

He can be in a suit and tie, scrubs and mask or jeans and a sweaty tee. 

Nothing is better than a man at work. 

Except if he's YOUR man and he's working for YOU.

Spring has hit us hard and fast this year at 500 Dollar Tomato.  So many things to do but the garden always has top priority.   We needed to expand the garden this year, hopefully for the last time.  Expansion equals physical labor and while I may have endurance and persistence on my side, what I do not have is strength.

Period.

I am, my friends, a pussy when it come to physical labor.

All these gardens, these trees, this home...none of it would be here if it wasn't for the one man in my life who listens to what I need and gives it to me.  Mostly because I ask for it and (more astonishingly) because I don't.

He does it because it he knows it's important to me and therefore important to him.  He's invested.

Happy wife?  Happy life.

So the long awaited garden expansion project happened this past weekend.  SM had already "double dug" a new strip of ground a few months ago.  This new patch of clumpy clay now needed to be tilled.

SM rented a Mantis from the local hardware store to do the job.   After lots of kicking and starts and stops due to the grass matting up, SM tamed the beast.

The next day was "move the fence" day.  What a pain in the tukus!

Thankfully the sky was overcast as SM pulled stakes, yanked fencing and pounded the stakes back into their new position.  I helped as much as I could but the simple fact of the matter is that this was man's work.

Once we were attaching the fence it became a team effort with SM stretching the fence and me tapping landscaping staples through the fencing into the cardboard and into the ground.

Have I mentioned before that there is just not enough cardboard in the world?

You can never have enough cardboard.  Or newspaper for that matter.

Monday morning found SM and I again tag-teaming with me trying to hold the newspaper on the ground in a stiff breeze while SM shoveled compost onto the new strip.  The newspaper would act as a bit of a weed and grass suppressant.

"Look at you go Frontier Girl!"  SM says encouragingly.

"Ha!  If I was born in the frontier days I'd be dead by now."  I responded.  "You'd be on your third wife.  And 14th kid.  Plenty of hands to help you on the farm."

"This is a huge-ass garden for just two people."  SM observes, shovel in hand.

"Tell me that after all the plants are up and mature."  I respond.  "And remember, you're looking at two gardens here.  One for Summer, the other one for Spring and Fall (raised beds).

I plan on buying a few loads of pine bark chips and tossing them onto the cardboard to create walkways. 

You can't believe how big it all feels now.


"You rock Squeetie Man."  I raise my hand to give him a high five, which he returns than swats me on the bottom with a "You're welcome.  Now get in there and make me some dinner."