I don’t know if you recall my much-beloved rain garden; I may have mentioned it now and again… once or twice (or maybe three, four, or five, or, OK, a lot of times) before. We did the hard work of building it back in 2011, but my rain garden care guide says it needs annual mulching to remain healthy. Needless to say, I haven’t mulched since we made it, and admittedly the amended soil has seemed to get harder and more clayey over time (clay being, alas, the composition of the rest of the yard).

This year I finally decided to do what I should have a long time ago, and I ordered a delivery of mulch. While we were doing that, I also figured we could to the other garden beds, such as there are. I measured the area to be covered and estimated we’d need four cubic yards of material. When I called, however, the gal I ordered from said, “But wait! There’s a deal if you buy six yards!” And, foolish inexperienced dirt-hauler that I am, I said, “Sure, what the heck. We can just spread it deeper.”

My first inkling of trouble came when the delivery dump truck dumped its entire load on our driveway.

Note to future Katie: FOUR YARDS IS ENOUGH.

Sunday, Ian and I moved mulch before church. Then, after church during Benji’s nap, Mom and Dad came over and helped me move more mulch while Ian did errands. When Ian got home, he rested a bit, changed, and moved more mulch.

I kept Benji occupied and out of the deeply alluring but regrettably prickly pile of dirt. Benji loved the idea of Ian being an excavator (piling dirt in the wheelbarrow), then a dump truck (pushing the wheelbarrow and dumping it), then a bulldozer (raking the mulch).

Anyway, after all this diligent mulch moving, we’ve mulched just about every square foot in the yard that could possibly take it. Yet here we are.

Sigh.

On the bright side: