This ‘n that…

Crazylegs update: (see Maggie, dammit for more info). My goal was to complete the 4.97 miles in 50 minutes. It was cold, and the wind was blowing at about 20 miles an hour, but I was excited nonetheless. I forged through the wind and managed to finish in 51:19 with plenty of steam left in the engine. I placed 8,059 out of 17,000ish runners. Most of this course is a part of the half marathon I’ll be running in 4 weeks, so the main point of Crazylegs was to see how I felt in order to better prepare for the long race at the end of May. I still have some work to do, but the 13.26 miles is no longer as daunting as it once was.

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I’m starting a vegetable garden this year. This is harder than it sounds. While I LOVE my little house, there really aren’t very many places to plant things because very little of my lawn gets full sun. I have two large trees in my back yard and one very large tree in my front yard. My house faces west, and the driveway is on the north, so the little grass area on the north side is in mostly full shade. Therefore, the only side of my house that gets full sun is the south side. And the previous owners planted a large bush in the only feasible place for a garden.

And that’s where my project begins. Yesterday, Dad and I dug out the bush. I felt bad about killing the bush, because it got all nice and red in the fall… but otherwise it was nothing special to look at, and because I have dreams of growing my vegetables instead of buying them this year, the bush had to go. After a good hour of cutting and chopping and digging, we managed to get out as much of it as we could.

Now here’s where my simple plan becomes complex. The yard on the south side of my house slopes down to the east. Which means, in order to put a garden here, I need to build it up a bit and put in some fill. This is not a step I was expecting (though it should have been if I had really thought about it). So now my day project has turned into a multi-day project requiring funds and labor I wasn’t expecting.

The good news? Blog fodder. I’ll post pics and keep you updated as it progresses…