…but not yesterday. Steve and I hauled and spread mulch for hours on Sunday. There is a lot of roadwork going on on Hwy 82 east of town. Lots of equipment that was parked for the weekend:
Including "Hogzilla':
Hogzilla is the mulching machine. Don't you love the name Hogzilla?!
The extremely wide median, which was pretty smooth in the center, was lined with enormous piles of mulch an dirt. And parked machinery. We made 6 trips, filling the back of Steve's pickup, and hardly made a dent in the pile we worked on.
It's a lot easier to move the mulch (both into the truck and onto the yard) if it is in manageable bins and buckets.
If you look close you'll see the mulch on the ground. It's mostly cedar and has a quietly nice smell. The pretty tree in the distance is one of two native yaupons. The leaves are yellow and it is covered in small red berries. These little trees drive me crazy most of the year because they send off roots and new trees all over the place. They'd take over the yard if I let them. But this time of year I appreciate their beauty.
And here's Steve, cutting stone. We had raised beds for vegetables in the area behind him, next to the driveway. We realized last summer that we are just not vegetable gardeners so he took out the raised beds and we covered the area with mulch today. We're going to put in a tree next week and I'm going to plant lavendar and zinnias there next summer. He's cutting stone to go in a row next to the driveway so that when we get out of the truck we can step onto stone.
So, while it was a glamorous day, it was a really nice day!
Piece O Cake Blog 
You STOLE mulch???? I’m shocked! and kind of impressed.
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We wouldnt call it stealing mulch…, its more that we didnt ask first. Its probably different in other states, maybe its even different in other parts of Texas, but here road construction and utility maintenance crews cut down a sizeable number of trees on 2-4 lane highways at different parts of the year. The trees get mulched because it reduces the size of the piles. Sometimes those piles sit there and rot for months on end. We, and other like-minded gardeners, have been reducing the sizes of those mulch piles for years. I gotta say, local hardwood mulch works better on my yard than anything else Ive found.
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Your garden looks lovely. What a huge task. We lived in Texas years ago and I was always amazed at the beautiful gardens, especially in December. We are from Canada and if I could send you a photo, you would see our garden under a few feet of snow. Blue sky though so I am not complaining. Happy Mulching..
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In these parts (east coast of Fl) NOTHING is free. You sometimes have to pay to drop something in the dump, and pay to take anything you find OUT of the dump! Wait, I take the “nothing” part back. People do “acquire” stuff from other peoples trash piles. I once dragged a lovely 10×12 room sized carpet (in perfect condition) from a trash pile, through the neighborhood. Other free stufff…you can collect shells on the beach….that’s something!
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Well, the east coast has other wonderful attributes – just not free mulch. Its funny because your first comment made me wonder what other Texans around here thought. Everyone I know is for taking the mulch. My son pointed out that its actually our mulch anyway since we are taxpayers :-).
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I like the way your son thinks!
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