Trent Ford - Stump Grinding Wonder Boy!!

Long story is too long...figuring out how we were going to get some major stumps out of the growing area of the garden, and smaller stumps out of the traffic area...so nobody impaled themselves...the short version is: Blessings were provided!!  An amazing guy named Trent Ford brought his even MORE amazing remote-control grinding machine and made short work of the stumps!  It was impressive!!  And he donated it!!  THANK YOU SO MUCH, TRENT!  (Need some work done?  Call Trent at 903-360-2720)

The Stott Family was a great help as we worked on more "jungle" clearing, and getting the beds ready for the 2nd round of compost next weekend!  We are hoping to have the boards we need for the beds by next Friday...AND a shed in which we can store our tools!

WHEELBARROWS, SHOVELS, and WORKERS!!

 Wow!  What a great turnout at the garden this morning!  Maybe that's the beauty of knowing we will only be working for one hour!!  Everyone knows it's not going on forever and even teenagers can handle that!!  It was great fun!!

We were SO THANKFUL to McCoy's Building Supply right around the corner from us, for donating two wheelbarrows to help us out.  Lots of people brought their own tools so there were plenty to go around!  In one short hour TWENTY YARDS of compost was hand-shoveled all over the growing area!  And it looks incredible!!  Even though the sun was out and warming things up a LOT, everyone worked hard and completed the project.  Having frozen otter pops afterwards really helped, too!!

COMPOST Thanks to Texas Organic!!

 We are so thrilled to partner with Texas Organic!  Diana has been delightful to work with, and John is beyond generous with his support of the Tyler Community Garden!!  Seeing the BIG dump truck at the garden was a beautiful sight!!  Shane was an amazing driver, dodging a telephone line that had dropped down near truck level...I'm still not sure how he managed to get through!  And he got every last bit of compost out of his truck, right where we wanted it!!  Fantastic!!  Now the work can really begin!!

With the compost delivered, we had about 20 minutes before we needed to head to the East Texas Food Bank to help there for a couple of hours...soooo, the young Elders and Terry decided to put their time to good use and axed down a couple of trees!!  Very impressive!!

Tilling the Garden

 The next step we needed completed was getting the ground tilled before Texas Organic could haul in a bunch of compost.  David Poole, clear from Winona, hauled his tractor to the garden and did all of the tilling.  He said, "Boy!  Y'all are lucky that you have sand and not clay!!"  We are grateful!  When it gets mixed with the compost, the garden will be a productive site.

Full disclosure:  David called en route and asked if it was raining at the garden.  We were a couple of blocks away and there were a few sprinkles on our windshield.  David said to let him know if it started to rain hard because he would need to turn around and come another day.  I started praying in my heart, "PLEASE, don't let it start raining..."  I felt a little bad because it has been soooo dry in this area. 

When we got to the garden it started drizzling more, but not really raining.  David called again and I assured him the dirt was dry.  When we hung up, I prayed harder!!!  By the time David arrived, the drizzling had ceased and the ground was dry.  My apologies to everyone who is in desperate need of rain!!  But I was SO grateful we were able to get the work done that needed to be...and a special BIG thanks to David for being willing to travel so far to help us out!!  

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