The dirt was supposed to arrive between 3 and 5 o'clock. At 5:30 I decided fine, I would paint pantries and doors. Four minutes later the dirt arrived.
Three years ago, half again as much dirt took over twice as long. I had the driver dump it behind the garage on the concrete ramp, even though I had realized the person-door was too narrow for the wheelbarrow. So I had to shove every barrowful up a steep, improvised ramp from alley to yard. This time I lay a huge tarp immediately in front of the gate and had the truck dump it there. My plank wasn't a ramp but level from yard to ribs of the heap, and by the time I reduced the heap, I just left the wheelbarrow in the doorway and shoveled up and into it. So it was much faster.
I thought I was going to have a lot left over for the two column pots and the patio pot and maybe some other planters. There's some spare, but not much. It's after Mother's Day, so I wonder if any annuals remain for purchase anywhere in town anyway.
All of this lovely Virginia creeper I have destroyed this spring. I have no pictures yet of my progress in staining the fence. The length I finished looks much better than the undone parts, but next time I'm getting clear rather than cedar stain.
And these are my kinds of jobs. Using the powerwasher was fun: water, immediate results, and cleaning, as if I took a massive Bioré strip to the fence. Staining the fence was sloppy and goopy and brushing on a substance that is entirely more forgiving than paint. Shoveling dirt works too, at least in today's quantity: enough to be satisfying, not so much to be crippling, with a definite result, requiring only strength and determindedness and with enough of the latter not needing so much of the former.
I wonder how much creeper will have grown back by the time the fence needs its next treatment.