Progymnasmata

I also posted this in a thread in the General Chat forum. But I think it's a pretty good stand-alone blog too, so I put it here as well.

Summer Project #2

This summer I planned build a landscaping-block planter to, primarily, hide some unsightly septic vents in our yard. This project is now, more or less, complete. (The "more or less" means that we still have to add some plants, but the major construction is done).

First I needed my toolbox (especially a couple of levels, shovels, wheelbarrow, rubber mallet. . . .)



Then I began building the planter by sketching out the space I wanted to enclose and staking out a guide string to follow. Once I made the guide string, I dug a small trench around the string where the first row of blocks would be placed.

The image below shows the trench and the first few blocks for the all important first row. (The first row is the most important row because each block and block-to-block transition points have to be perfectly level. This will make all the rows on top of it level).

Oh, and in this image you can see those ugly vent pipes too.



Once the first row has been set, the rest of the work is just stupid labor -- placing one block on top of another, checking the level every now and then just to be sure. My oldest daughter (not pictured) helped me during this stage of the project. I had her "sweep" the dust and sand off the top of the blocks with an old paint brush. Then, when she was bored with that, I had caught a few toads for her to play with. She put them in that light blue bucket -- I think you can see both paint brush and bucket in the picture below. Here I'm about half way through this part of the project:



Once I had the walls at the desired height (five rows high), I filled in the planter with the following: top soil, 6 bags of composted cow manure, 1 bale of Canadian peat moss, and two (24-count) cartons of leaf worms (from one of our many local bait shops). Then I mixed all the ingredients gently together with a shovel and landscaping rake.

Once the worm-ridden fertility soup was ready, planted a few plants: mugo pine bushes on one side, wild roses on the other. The rest of the planter will be filled in later in the week after much family discussion.

NOTE: I'm the only male in the household (wife and two daughters), so the topic of what flowers to plant, what colors they should be, where they should be placed, etc. . .necessitates earnest and careful dialog.