Well, Day 3 of urban homesteading, er, yard farming, went pretty well. I’ve been home this week doing a little daddy-daycare, and so far it’s been a blast. Here is what yesterday consisted of: Me digging up sod. Again. (Sorry for the lack of photographic evidence; I didn’t feel like hauling out the camera to record my masterwork, so you’ll just have to believe me that I actually did some work yesterday.)
Yesterday I probably dug up about 40 square feet of sod, which really is not an inconsiderable amount of dirt. It’s not easy with a shovel and an edger, but it works. And we’ve actually managed to fill in some bare spots in the back yard with some of the sod from the front. This is what’s known as Yard Farming Migration. Yeah, it’s a term I just made up on the spot. You can’t use it. It’s patent pending.
One thing you don’t really think about while digging up sod is just how friggin’ heavy it is. It looks really light and airy, I mean, all it is is grass, right? Well, the grass is pretty light, but the damn dirt is heavy as hell. I’ve taken three wheelbarrow-fulls to the back yard and I thought my arms were going to fall off. I left most of the yesterday’s work in the bare spots in the front because we really don’t have any place to put that much dirt. We’re getting rained on today and so our yard is going to be one muddy mess for a while…
Hopefully our yard won't look this bad when the rain ends.
Speaking of rain, yesterday’s dirt was much easier to dig than last week’s dirt. We had a pretty heavy rain a few days ago which made digging easier. In fact,wetting the area first makes digging up sod a WHOLE lot easier than waiting until the soil is as hard as a brick. So I would recommend hosing it down before working. I wetted the area that I was going to work in for about 30 seconds which seemed to work pretty well. Unfortunately, this also makes the dirt quite heavy. Oh well, you can’t have it both ways.
I got a few interesting glances from folks walking by, and our neighbor’s son actually did ask me (again) what I was doing. Apparently, it’s a bit mind-boggling that someone is digging up their lawn, which was already full of crab grass and weeds.
So maybe I can get done with one side of the yard by early next week and begin to tackle the other side. Where I’ll be doing the same thing. Again. I can’t wait.
