Garden, Sweet Garden!

After the last few of weeks of pulling sod, and a strike on outside work due to rain, Saturday turned into a wonderful day of being able to work outside and a great opportunity to buckle under and give into mechanical advantage...

After two hours in the garden working on manually pulling sod, a neighbor (Bro. Jons) stopped by with a HUGE tractor that just happened to have a flat blade that allowed him to drive into our yard, lower the blade, and scrape and lift out the remaining sod in three (yes only three) swipes. Less than 10 min. later...goodbye sod! It took a little more time to sift out the grass clumps that were left,and then we were ready to till.

About this time, a brother from the ward (Bro. Gunter) called to ask us if we would be interested in a custom photo for our new home. Bro. Gunter has a tradition of giving away a scenic photo in a custom made frame to all the new families in town who build/buy a house. Both the picture and frame are art works of his. Of course we said yes, and Aaron took a 'union break' and rode his bike to the Gunter residence to pick out a photo. While he was there he just happened to ask if Bro. Gunter knew of anyone in the ward that owned a roto till, and it just happened to be that Bro. Gunter owned a roto till that he was more than happy to let us borrow...so Aaron rode home on his bike and Bro. Gunter followed in his truck with the roto till.

---By the way, the picture Aaron chose is of Pilot peak and Finger Peak and the Clark Fork of the Snake on the Idaho/Montana Border, now we just need to decide where we are going to hang all of our pictures---

With a roto till, Aaron was able to till through the top layer, but because the tractor left a hole, he also needed to transport some of our top soil (that we just happen to have) to level the ground.

--Enter neighbor number 2--

Luckily for us we have VERY nice neighbors who happen to own equipment that we don't. The Jons' who live to the east of us let Aaron borrow their 4-wheeler, equipped with a flat blade. This was probably the highlight of Aaron's day in the garden, getting to 'run' at full speed into a dirt pile on the back of a 4-wheeler.

Eventually, he got around to getting the garden level, and roto tilled one last time, leaving a beautiful piece of land just waiting to be planted.



Another blessing we have had since our move is that our neighbors to the South (the Christensen's) have been nice enough to let us borrow their lawn mower...much to Aaron's enjoyment it is a riding lawn mower. This week, Aaron let Alexis experience the wonders of a riding lawn mower...she LOVED it!



She loved it even more when Aaron let her drive...