Spent the day at Mom's new house--digging. She has all these plants, both new and old, and nothing is planted in the ground yet. That's partly because the soil is clayey with a fair amount of gravel and a few cobbles thrown in. It is NOT fun to dig in. Nearly every shovelfull hits a rock or two. But there is one corner that has been outlined as a planting bed which is also a little less compacted from the construction (oh, yeah, forgot to mention the compaction underneath the clayey gravelly stuff) and I got carried away today.
I started digging and just kept on. In fact, I kept on for nearly seven hours. (I actually enjoy spading. I take it slow and easy and don't let my ambitions get ahead of my shovel.) Mom now has an 18 inch deep hole that will take some decent soil, as well as a very large mound of dirt from the excavation and a nice pile of cobbles and gravel that can be used later.
Through all this digging, Kharma kept me company. She roamed and used her increasingly large paws to dig and chased gravel when I tossed it in the direction of the designated gravel pile and explored the depths which were much deeper than she is big. She would occasionally desert me and wander away to see what Grammy was doing.
She tired toward the end of the day and fell asleep close by as I shovelled. I would step around her as I used the spade. Pretty soon there was no room for my feet, only the pup. Eventually she was asleep on an island of soil surrounded by a large hole in the ground. Dirt would fall on her, the shovel would be inches from her head, the rocks would screech as the shovel scraped them, and she didn't budge. She was totally worn out.
After dinner, human and canine, I began to work on the nice big hole for the dogwood tree. Again, she helped dig. She fit rather nicely in the hole--the depth suited her and it was just the right round size for her. I was rhetorically asking myself what she would grow into if planted, when it dawned on me. Obviously, a puppy would grow into a dogwood.
