Frog Belly Rat Bone

Well it's March and that means it's time for me to get going in this new yard Annie and I have been blessed with for the year. In order to get Annie a little excited about gardening we have been reading books about Flowers, planting and such. Annie has become somewhat infatuated with the book, Frog Belly Rat Bone. Don't ask me why. It's about a monster with damp socks and picky underwear, but he plants seeds and says a little song while he does it and Annie is in love with him.
Anyways, today being our first warm day in March we went outside this morning to get started. Singing, of coarse, the Frog Belly Rat Bone song as we did so. Imagine going outside and seeing your new neighbors singing loudly "Frog Belly Rat Bone, one two three, the specks in the earth are guarded by me....." over and over again, while carrying shovels and pulling weeds. No one said hi. I'm sure they think we're from some sort of cult.
We did make progress. I got the bad weeds out, folded in the cover grass, and dug up a slip n' slid and a huge old root system. We then had to take a soil sample into the "Dirt Doctor." Annie was very concerned when I told where we were going to take the dirt and insisted on carrying the can all the way there. She sang to the can of dirt on the car ride there and had to kiss the dirt goodbye when we left it at the garden center. I then spent the entire ride home answering why questions about the dirt doctor and if she'll have to share her medicine with the dirt. If she asks you, all dirt has to go to the doctor every once in a while for check ups, and no we don't give the dirt our medicine (it has it's own).

Ok so this went on longer than I thought it would.


Yes this really is a Slip n' slid. How it got buried in a raised garden bed I have no idea. Maybe it was some sort of irrigation system?