Wood Chips!

A few months ago I signed us up with the Seattle Tree Preservation society for a free delivery of wood chips. The way it works is if they're in your area taking down a tree, they'll drop off a load of wood chips for you to use as mulch. I wanted the mulch to cover the bare dirt area under the play structure in the backyard. Yes, for a cushion under the structure, but mainly because every time anyone steps back there a cloud of dust blows across the yard.

Anyhow, we hadn't heard from these guys in months and suddenly a few weeks ago they called saying they'd be in our area the next day and would we still be interested in a load of mulch? YES! I would LOVE some mulch! They made sure we knew that the load would end up being the size of a small car (I figured we'd cover the ground in the back and have a bunch left over to cover garden beds in the fall), and they'd drop it in our driveway. Now, the week before this, Chris started his new job which entails a bit of travel. The day the wood chips were coming happened to be a day Chris left for work for a few days. Hmmm. I didn't think it would matter, so the chips would sit in the driveway for a few days. The next morning, the guy with the truck calls and says he's outside the house and it looks like our driveway is quite small. I told him it didn't matter if some went on the grass, that Chris had left me a tarp to put down. The guy looked at my tarp and laughed.

Then this happened:

And this:

 

 So, of course, the "small car" of wood chips is WAAAAY more that I thought it would be (I was thinking more like VW Beetle-sized) and the guy tells me that it's illegal to have the wood chips spilling over into the street or on the sidewalk. Of course this pile is way into the street and on the sidewalk. Did I mention that Chris was out of town for the next three days? And it was 90 degrees this week? And we only own one shovel and no wheelbarrow? The boys told me they would help move the wood chips, so I put them to work.

Posing by the mountain of wood chips.

"Helping"

Not so much helping as playing. Funny how that works.

Some very good friends and our sister Laura came and helped after dinner. They brought a couple more shovels and another garbage can, and my neighbor loaned us a wheelbarrow. Three hours later the pile looked like this.

And our back yard looked like this. So many wood chips that the boys can't swing. We've since moved things around a bit, and the play structure is functional again. And a few days later, after talking with many of our neighbors and offering free mulch to all of them, a nice lady down the street hired four men and within an afternoon the rest of the pile was gone. Thank goodness!