Vision of the Apocalypse

Given the amount of yard work Kris and I have, I decided to host a Tom Sawyer event of sorts: less trick our friends into helping us with the yard, and more bribe them into helping us. We sent out an email inviting everyone over for $20 an hour to help us with our yard.

Only Crystal and Shirley took us up on that bribe.

They were the only two we needed. They rocked.

Recalling the front and back yards are all foot high grasses and weeds, and that we needed to remove the rocks we put into the parkway last year at our toil of tears (references to which are oddly missing here and in my photo album), because car doors open into them when parked next to our curb. The weeks were certainly the biggest task.

I went with James to a composting workshop, so, as Crystal said, I was the smartest woman ever: I organized a work party, then left before I had to do any work. I brought back a compost bin, which we used at the end of the day. Shirley and Crystal pulled weeds from the front yard, the back yard, the garden and the side yard. They pulled up so much green material, we had enough for two compost bin and two ginormous compost piles. Well, maybe three.

The highlight of the day was when I asked Shirley to help me turn the compost pile. I explained what we were doing, rotating a bin that's been going for two weeks, and building a new one. When we rotated, however, we were going to remove the grubs that were in the middle of the pile. After I had pulled out three, Crystal came over to help us with the rotation. A few moments last, Kris came over to watch, and help with the grubs.

We collected a lot:

Shirley and Crystal were good humoured about it:

Kris commented that the mass of squirming grubs was alternating a vision of the apocalypse and a train wreck. In neither case, could we really take our eyes off of the mass.

It was gross.