Construction of all sorts

It was a gorgeous day here. Sunny and 70 degrees. A nearly perfect day for November. Perfect enough for getting jobs done outside.

V tackled replacing a basement window. This is the window that had been boarded up and the deck had been built mostly covering it (who knows what they were thinking!). We also needed to make repairs to the block in the wall as several had been broken out to put in an exhaust fan in the downstairs bathroom. We removed the fan ages ago since it was installed badly and was a mousey highway into the basement. While the blocks were out, we decided to install a new window in the opening- one that we can actually open!!!

V works on the blocks where the new window will go.

While V worked on the window, I began robbing out concrete blocks that had been used for the deck foundation. We're not going to keep the same structure for the deck so all of these blocks are for my use.

One course down, two to go....

What am I using blocks for, you may ask???

Why my raised beds for the garden, of course.

Raised beds, roughly laid out.

I still need to dig out the bottom course of blocks and there are some that are being used to support the deck frame after we pulled it off the house. But I should have enough to make two 4x12 foot beds. I'd like to eventually have a few more but we'll have to acquire more blocks from somewhere first.

Blocks out of the way, stakes in the corners for the first bed.

Now I just need to dig out the trench to set the blocks. I've got a string line to use as a level. Since the beds are set into a hill, the Southwest corner is about 14 inches lower than the Northeast corner. That's one of the reasons for using raised beds on this slope, to help control erosion while making it a useable space. That, and the previous owners dumped lots of gravel all over this area- most likely because it got too muddy for their horses- and it's really hard to work. By having raised beds, I can avoid having too much gravel in the soil.

I'm hoping to have these finished before it gets too cold to work so I can have them ready to use in the spring. We left a huge pile of compost at the old house that I'm thinking about moving out here to fill the beds. It will be messy but well worth it, especially since the house hasn't sold yet and we don't have any compost here that's ready yet.

All in all, a good day's work. Tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day. It makes me a bit irritated that I have a baby shower for a co-worker to go to tomorrow afternoon. I'd blow it off but I'm one of the hostesses- so I'd better be there- even though I'd much rather be out working on my dream.