05-21-2024 Entry

This was a busy day, no formal exercise but a lot of work. I got up early enough to measure the back beds for their square footage, so I could estimate how much wood chips to buy. I called the Greenery at the Miramar Landfill right after they opened and confirmed that they had wood chips, then I waited around while Ann got up and had breakfast before we headed over to John's house to borrow his truck. We drove to the landfill, bought 2 cubic yds of wood chips, then drove to the area where a guy in a skip loader dumped it (it was much more than 2 cubic yds) into the pickup truck bed. Then we tied down a tarp over the load, which was piled as high as the cab of the truck, and headed back on surface streets. We had to stop twice to adjust the tarp and lower the driving speed before we were moving along without problems. It took us about 45 minutes to get home, maybe a little longer. When we got there, I backed the truck into the driveway and we started pushing wood chips onto a tarp. Pretty soon, I had the idea of pushing them directly into the lawn trash cans with wheels, so we could fill them up and directly cart them back to the beds. Ann did most of the transport and dumping for the first few loads while I was busy filling additional trash cans. I helped her dump the loads when we got to the second bed, and she cleared out the area around the drain in the first bed. We got enough of the wood chips dropped into the beds to provide good coverage and ended up with 4-5 trash cans of extra chips, some of which we will keep and other that we will spread in different parts of the yard. I then swept out the remaining chips and dirt from the truck bed and later on, after lunch, hosed the truck down to remove the dirt and grime from carrying the load. In the early afternoon, I took a shower and then drove his truck back to his house after filling it with gas. He and Vivian were successful in getting their marriage license application. She is going to take his name, which is a nice touch. August 8th is the big day, a quick civil ceremony (2 minutes) at the courthouse, then a reception for San Diego friends at Stir Fresh. I drove home and was pretty tired. Read and rested for a while, then I finished the last little bit of watching Dune Part 1. After dinner (it was a big cooking day for Ann and I washed a lot of dishes), I went into the backyard and spread the wood chips around the second bed, then I went out front and emptied the rest of the wood chips on the tarp into trash cans. Swept up the remaining chips and folded the tarp to put it away. It was a long day.