Dirt Removal: Chapter 1

One problem we did not foresee upon starting our garden was how difficult it would prove to be to get rid of the old dirt. When we initially planned all this, we barely batted an eye at the so called "challenge" of dirt removal, even when our landlord, who is built like The Hulk, expressed some serious concern. So our backyard is completely blocked in on all four sides with no access to the street? No problem! We'll "figure it out." Those words are now haunting me as I stare at 20 Hefty bags filled with dirt, too heavy to be lifted, and scattered throughout our backyard, looking more like body bags in a scene from Dexter, than bags of dirt because honestly, WHO HAS 20 BAGS OF DIRT LYING AROUND??

But, let me explain how we got to our current situation. When we first started digging, a week ago today, we decided to scatter the old dirt throughout the rest of the backyard. Not a bad idea, even in retrospect. We threw some dirt over here, threw some dirt over there, no problem. We were previously warned that if we did this, we had to make sure the dirt levels weren't higher than the patio level, as a rain storm would cause a serious overflow of dirt and lead to a mud pit. So while Alyssa uprooted the shrubs, I handled the dirt dispersal. At first I just shoveled the dirt and chucked it into some nearby areas, barely having to move at all. But fairly quickly, in order to ensure that I didn't cause a "dirt overflow," I needed to travel a few steps from the garden pit so I could throw the dirt onto a new spot. And very soon after that, I seemed to have exhausted all easy to access spots and so, while tromping around, spinning this way and that in search of sparser areas, all the while holding my extended shovel, causing Alyssa to shrink back in fear, I happened to knock off the ears of every single porcelain garden rabbit that had been placed in the backyard by the previous tenant. Oops. All in all, our first attempt at dirt removal was relatively successful. Aside from the rabbit casualties, I was able to spread a good amount of the dirt throughout our yard and not cause any type of overflow. Of course, much to our chagrin, I had barely made a dent in the volume of dirt we still had to remove.