a freecycle sunday..

it was a beautiful day today.. chilly, but the sun was warm. my brother and i headed out to our parents' house out in the country to celebrate his quarter-century birthday. my baby bro...! anyway, while we were out there, we loaded up dad's pickup with a few things from around the yard. he had an old beater of a mower, no longer sufficient for his huge plot, but perfect for our city yard.. it should survive the rest of the season. we finally got to cut into that meadow that had recently become home to some unwanted creatures; namely... ticks! eeuugh.. and with the dogs on the main floor it had become critical timing to get it cut.

not only did we score a freecycled mower, but we also got to take their extra garden ties, and a load of wood for the fire. oh, almost forgot to mention what i had originally wanted to take home, the rain barrel! we can collect the next storm off the roof to water... for free!

now that the grass is mowed, and we have more soil [we used dad's truck to grab more after unloading the freebies], i'm looking forward to progressing on the beds out back this week. tuesday, thursday and saturday are market days, when we can go and pick up more seedlings of our favourite fruits and veggies. we should have the beds mostly planted by sunday, and i fly out monday morning for a week. hope the boys can keep up with the watering!

the boys will also hopefully find the perfect home for the rain barrel, and get that system set up soon. i think i remember one of the other tenants mentioning his parents having a rain barrel, the more the merrier! we were fortunate enough that our parents had an abundance of things we could make use of, but there's always places to get good stuff for free. there are existing organizations like freecycle.org that helps make those hookups happen. also there's kijiji, and the local newspapers.

our city has a free mulch pile too, a lot of towns around here do. it's rough cut, scrap from fallen trees and cut branches in the area, but it's free! as for firewood, you can go down any industrial strip in this town and pick up truck loads of untreated pine skids piled up by the curb ...for free! these things are there for the taking, and they will be there regardless if they get used, so we may as well.

that's enough about free stuff, you get my drift.. lots more garden work to come, bright and early...!