Dragging bags of bark in the dark

The things we do for our garden paths. I finished dragging my last six bags of bark chips in the dark at 630pm tonight.  A second dusk finish in a row.  But I didn’t mind as it was a real bonus to have them at all.

This morning, as I suspected, it was tipping down with rain. Gad that’s annoying. So the branches stayed put half way up the hill.

And I was thinking of staying put inside too.  But no. The siren call of the messy potting shed called. How bad?

Here’s a before and after shot.

As things are so wet in there, I had to move all my stuff to one end of the shed and try and clean and dry one area as best as I could.  Artur stayed put in his box; watching warily at the mess I was making, but not fussing as much as I expected.

But the moment it truly stopped raining – around 2pm, the cat was out the cat flap like a shot.  And so was I.

Well, I didn’t follow him through the flap, but I twinkled outside to emtpy the rain gauge (just under two inches in the past 24 hours) and plot my bark chip retrieval exercise.

We live in an area where logging takes place.  And the logic of where a few dozen huge Douglas fir trees are left beside the road for a few months never makes sense to me.  But each tree has some mystery spray painted label so it must make sense to the logging companies.

For a few months now I have been driving past a grass verge on the way to the village of Silhac which has the leftover detritus of logging. Bark chips.  A field of them. I didn’t take a particularly good shot of them as I was a touch nervous about picking up the chips.  Did they belong to anyone? I didn’t think so as it’s just a road verge. And I don’t think anyone puts value on a waste product from the logging industry.

But I do. Paths. Dry paths. Potager paths.  So I filled the car with empty bags and cruised up to the verge. It was a matter of minutes to  fill the bags and the car to the brim.  I had no idea if I had enough to cover the entire set of four paths I wanted to; but at least it was a start.

A short detour to the village to drop off cheques and cash to people who had been working on the house in the past month, and then back home to unload.

No, not enough. So one more trip (about a 20 minute round trip), one more filling of the car and as the church bells tolled 6pm in the nearby village I thought it was time to scoot away.

Tomorrow (it ought to be a sun day) I will empty the bags and hopefully get the last of the chipping done.  I’ll need to get up early; I have to travel to London at lunchtime.

But so satisfying to have achieved quite a lot despite the downpour.  And in case you are wondering why I have an agapanthus in a bucket in the middle of the floor – it is there to catch a drip.