In the morning my neighbor's daughter had a project to do and needed to do some 'Community Volunteer' work for someone. Lauren had asked if I had anything her daughter could do for me. I thought about it and texted back that I did.
Two weeks ago Allie asked if she could have make a tiny video for a school project. The theme was Western. So she dressed up and came down. I handed Lil' Richard to her ... he is our tiny pony that stands at 32 inches. Mom took her video of Allie saying hello to her on line school mates and loved every second of it!
So I told her mom that since I tied Lil' Richard out in different areas would she mind spreading some of his piles of manure? I normally do it every day to break down the manure but had been a bit remiss lately.
Allie chattered the whole time we worked together while keeping our distance. She made short work of the manure.
We ended up pulling some old burdock by Rich's junk pile. I let her toss the burdock with out the big balls of seeds into a pile. When she ended up with burdock on her hat and jacket she decided she'd like to get rid of the ones coming up!
I showed her how to use a long bladed shovel to dig the burdock up by the roots. She went about that with great gusto.
When that became tedious we hunted around for some wild parsnip do dig up. Allie said she had two hours of work she wanted to do.
So we went on the hunt for Parsnip. A few things happened during our two hours. Allie learned to recognize parsnip leaves and burdock leaves. She asked if she could come down again to rake up Lil' Richard poop... She chatted on as we talked about burdock being the inspiration for Velcro. She told me a story of how band-aids were invented.
And when she found out that I actually would eat the wild parsnips, she gathered up the ones we found to take home. I gave her the directions on how to wash and prepare them for cooking. She repeated the directions almost verbatim back to me.
True, wild parsnip can be eaten and it is tasty! It is also a pain to clean and prepare, but so worth the extra effort.
Allie went home with an armful of wild veggies that she was so enthusiastic to try.
What a great morning I had!
After lunch I worked on my fencing project and got it all set up finally. The mules will have some fresh grass. Though we seriously need some rainfall as everything is dry as a bone around here.
My next huge surprise was when Rich came out of the house and fired up the skid steer.
There are two huge piles of dirt next to the driveway. One pile was manure and is now composted into some fantastic dirt. It has been there SO long that it felt like part of the scenery.
The second pile of dirt is road gravel and ditch dirt. About 5 years ago the township cleaned the ditches and Rich told them to drop the 'fill' next to the compost pile.
In truth, I never imagined after all of Rich's health issues that he'd ever...EVER get anything done outside again.
Since his stroke and then the PE, he has been a Hermit who did not go out for any reason other than a doctor's appointment.
Justin came down to get some of the 'fill' and apparently the talk the two men had motivated Rich.
I think so at least!
I spent the afternoon with Rich while he operated the skid steer and we began cleaning up ruts and holes in the yard. These projects had been on permanent hold and I'd given up hope for ever getting things tidied up.
I did the hand shoveling work, he brought the dirt to fill in holes and ruts all over the yard.
He is talking about tackling the side yard which has been an utter mess since we remodeled in 2016.
Last night he cooked steaks on the grill.
Okay.
I need a nice soft place to faint.
