Getting dirty


There’s something cathartic about getting dirty.
Something uniquely satisfying about tackling a project you’ve never done before.

Last week, I shared some pictures of my newly improved front porch.

I’ve spent every morning since enjoying the new space. Some evenings, too. In the above picture, you can see part of the sidewalk leading to our front porch from the driveway. What you can’t see is its length.




You may have noticed all that beautiful, black mulch in the flower beds on either side of the sidewalk. You may have also noticed that the sidewalk is black. That’s because every time it rains or the sprinklers come on, that black mulch washes onto the sidewalk. Since I’ve been spending time on the front porch, I’ve grown tired of looking at the black sidewalk. Which is why I decided it was high time I installed some edging to keep the mulch where it’s supposed to be.

The installation instructions weren’t complicated: Dig a 4″ trench the length of the area you wish to install the edging (which was two 60 foot trenches), cut the edging to length using a hacksaw, place the edging into the trench, drive metal edging spikes in every 4 feet plus at the beginning and end of the flower bed, then compact the dirt around the edging.

You wanna know what’s more cathartic than getting dirty?

Driving 9″ metal spikes into the ground with a sledgehammer.

Actually, hitting pretty much anything with a sledgehammer is extremely gratifying.

Next on the agenda is firing up the pressure washer and cleaning up that nasty sidewalk. That should be awesome.

And here’s a picture of one of my new Gerber daisies:

Just like me: A delicate flower…

What’d y’all do this weekend? Do you like digging in the dirt?

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