The garden, oh the garden....

So my friend OhioT, who hasn't been feeling well lately due to some spinal problems, usually
plants a garden. This summer it looks like that is out, unless some of you are going to be near
Cincinnati and have an afternoon to till a garden for me. (Seriously. Let me know. He's a good
man and needs a little help.) His lack of gardening turned into my half-assed, "we could put in
a garden" comment.

And then the party began.

Damn those half-assed comments anyway.

One of these days I'm going to realize that my glib remarks are getting me involved in things I
don't particularly feel like doing, simply because they seem easy enough at the time. You wanna go out and close down the bar with a dozen of your firefighter friends? Bring it on. (I can't even begin to tell you how hard it is to find a car wash that is open at 3 am, to get the puke off the jeep.) You think a family vacation to Disney with all of us in the same house will work out? OK. (That one pretty much did, because everyone stayed on eggshells.) And now, how much work can a container garden be?

Oh hell.

But no, really, I'm game. I can grow stuff. My house plants flourished and thrived until I went
to Iraq, and then they came here, where they had to learn to suck humidity out of the air if they
wanted to get watered at all. I did some research with OhioT, who had nothing but good stuff to
say about putting in a square foot garden. I found some construction plans I could work with,
and then I called Chucklehead, because he drives an Expedition and so he got to go to the Home Depot for me. I'm up for an adventure, but it seemed a hell of a lot easier to let him haul the lumber home than me trying to cram it into the jeep.

Anyway, pre shopping trip, we reconnoitered. We both agreed the plans I had for building the
raised beds looked sound, and easy enough. And made a shopping list. He went, he shopped, he
delivered. I really like that no-nonsense approach of his.

I measured off the boards, because some cuts were going to need to be made, and then couldn't find the circular saw on Friday. Dad was gone, and it's his saw, so I just waited until Saturday. Biggggggggggg mistake. Because that's when a 2 hour project that a blind amputee could have done turned into a circus.

Family, friends of family, and the 80 year old neighbor who lives across the street came by and got in on the action! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And Mom cooked bacon. She cooked bacon for hours. I dunno. I don't ask. It's just easier. But really, five pounds of bacon?! I called Chucklehead in a plea for help because that's when Dad, the friends, and the 80 year old neighbor, who will henceforth be called Squishy, talked about going to the hardware store. Apparently I wasn't doing that shit right. And they had a better idea of how to do it while inside, on the couch, watching some basketball.

The boxes are built. They're hanging out in the side yard, so we can make sure they get juuuuuust the right amount of sunlight before the gardening soil gets here and is shoveled in. And all those parts that were bought by the guys at Home Depot on Saturday are going right back to the store, because this chick knows what the hell she's doing. Squishy said if he ever needs anything done that he's going to call me, because it will be done right!

Now, if I can just survive getting the garden into the ground, without it turning into another circus. If it does though, I'm totally going inside and putting on a clown face.