DIY My A-S-S

Last year Dirty and I got a tomato plant and a basil plant and did alright in harvesting them.

Then we went out of town and forgot to have someone water them and they died. 

Sad day.

This year, we are committed to doing better.

With the cost of produce rising, and taking into consideration the amount of produce that we consume, we decided that we would plant our own garden this year.

This weekend was the beginning of that project.

We decided to build our own raised vegetable bed.

I consulted Match and she said that she remembered PW having a tutorial on building one, so I looked it up and thought we could do it.

First of all, please notice that PW has a man (who I am figuring is a professional carpenter) actually building hers.

This process was far from easy.

First, we borrowed PapaBear's cordless power drill. Then we headed to Lowe's to buy our supplies. 

The Lowe's trip was pretty uneventful - though I'm pretty sure the people there were a little concerned about the supplies we were buying. This was confirmed when we were at the check-out and we put our small sledge hammer on the counter and one of the guys said, "I think there needs to be a 7-day waiting period for that weapon."

Either way, we got home, unloaded all of our materials and got to work.

Right about this time we also quit taking pictures. Oh well.

More importantly - I LOVED the power drill! I need one - I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I bet I'll find something.

So, we drilled our pilot holes and then started putting it all together. The first screw - stripped. The second screw - stripped. WTF is going on?

We called Papa to ask if our zinc screws were wrong, because we couldn't understand why we were eating up screws.

He thought that it didn't matter, so we tried again - this time, I gave the drill a little less power.

Success!

So we get the base of the box put together, level and square it off and add the corner stakes.

Then we broke for lunch. We went to Match and Papa's to eat and then ran a few more errands before heading home to finish our project.

Finally back home, we get everything unloaded from the truck again, head to the back yard and fire up the drill. Much to our dismay, the battery is dead. Seeing as how the battery that was in it when we got it from Papa was dead, we now had to dead batteries and no charger.

So we head next door to see if our neighbor can help us out. He has a drill that you plug in to use so we get that and an extension cord and get back to work.

Only his drill has too much power and eats up a couple more screws.

After a couple of minutes of discussion we decide that we will load up Papa's drill with the two dead batteries and take it back to him to charge until the following day.

We get everything pretty much put away and loaded in the truck and make our way back to Match and Papa's for the third time that day.

We get out of the truck, walk through the garage, and realize that we left the drill and the batteries sitting on the floor in our kitchen.

I wish I was joking.

At this point, I let loose a string of profanities that would have made a sailor blush.

Then we got the battery charger and headed home.

After charging the batteries all night, we finally finished our raised vegetable bed on Sunday night around dark.

Now we just have to fill it with soil, plant some seeds, and watch it grow.

Lord, help us!