CFB Crow Lake Gardens: Brought to you by...Booze!

From time to time last year, while discussing our spring 2014 plans, Christine would make reference to her "gardening budget".  I never gave it much thought, though I did notice that it seemed to be substantial when she started buying various plants, soil, etc.

Then one day she explained how it works; From time to time she would buy me a bottle of port, maple whiskey, a couple of cans of cider, whatever.  And when I paid her back, she would set that money aside to spend on her garden later.

So...I guess you're welcome for the sacrifice of my liver, Mother Nature. Hard to suppress feeling a little funny by the sheer volume of $$ raised.  At least Christine isn't using my drinking to fund her space flight.

Among Christine's many purchases were three metric tons square yards of cedar chips, enough for every garden at the place.  It was enough for NEW gardens at the place.  In fact, it would have been enough for your garden too.  I don't even have to know who's reading this.  I've seen the pile, and hauled a significant portion of it from our driveway so I make that statement with supreme confidence.

It worked out though.  Cleaned everything up and smells delightful.  :-)

Pay attention to that hideous black box at top left, it becomes relevant later.

See all that white stuff?  Dandelion fluff of death.  Let us not speak of it further.

After we covered the larger gardens, and still having a huge pile of chips left, I set my sights on some of the now weed-covered areas around the steps.  That came out pretty great, I thought.

And we STILL had loads more!

More on that later, but for now back to that black box.  It's a composting...huh...container.  Apparently, when seen from the deck-side kitchen window, it offended Christine's eye.  And damn it, that's simply not going to be acceptable at my cottage!

Christine found something a bit more attractive at Rona, bought it, assembled it, removed the black box and placed the new one, thereby improving the view greatly.  We have gone from this...

Ew!

To that!

Ah!

What did *I* do?  Well, I brought it down from the car.  It didn't crawl out of the trunk by itself, you know!

The ultimate test?  The natives seem to dig it.

But maybe he just likes the bird seed.