Level playing field

Everyone wants to play on a level playing field. Including the band. The band Jumbled Pie deserves it! We may not get to building the stage shell though.

 

Some grass and we’re ready for the band! OK, more raking.

 

The grass is growing already. We don’t need no stinkin’ turf.

 

Supervising. And ever alert.

 

The green thumb and the supervising kitty.

Preparations started when the snow finally melted

March 12: We measure the space needed for the dinner table, and prototype how to protect from the elements. Wow. Hard to image the actual space until you put down the mason’s lines!

 

March 17: A day after we exclaimed that we need more bamboo for construction than what we have growing, our neighbor called and asked if we needed any – which was just cut down.

 

April 21: Our neighbor Riley and his Kubota clearing blackberries and leveling. Much of the leveling needs to be done by hand with shovels, rakes, hoes.

 

We found a pickup cap from at least 32 years ago – JS didn’t put it there. Riley enjoyed crushing.

 

April 23: Pressure washing has begun to remove green stuff that grows on everything here.

 

April 25: After three prototypes of lighting, we found a “go”.

 

April 26: Leveling, raking, seeding. How will we stop the birds from eating ALL the seeds?

 

The fun part – covering the seeds with straw.

 

Ooops. The phone cable buried 30 years ago burped. Internet became flaky. We learned that the phone company is not responsible for the 350 feet from the green box at the foot of the driveway to the house. Gotta have Internet for live-streaming the wedding!

 

The trencher worked great – until it hit rocks. Lots of them.

 

A path less taken, behind the bamboo grove.

 

When the trencher hit a logging cable from 100 years ago, the backlash made my thighs black-and-blue. Took a while to cut through – shouldn’t it have rusted apart over 100 years?

 

Flower girl Vija from next door and JS, admiring the sparks. Sawzall was needed, too.

 

April 30: Underground phone/Internet cable. 24 conductors. In case 20 of them go south. When I mentioned fiber optic to the telcom guy, he laughed. And laughed. And reminded us of where we live.

 

May 1: We discovered that when it rains, the 18 inch trench fills back up with mud, which becomes dirt. Hand digging required.

 

The last 10 feet. More hand digging.

 

 

And the trench helped get underground power to the wedding site; the greenhouse is halfway there. Power needed for the band, lighting, food service, and – doesn’t everything run off of electricity (besides our neighbor’s antique apple press? And our shovels?)

 

May 7: Beauty is bursting all around us. More of this joy in the next post.

So much love

We are delighted and humbled and amazed at our wedding RSVP response. We thought we would have several rounds of invitations, to be sure we didn’t “overbook”. We had to put our rental orders in before January, and guessed about 100 guests, plus 10 just in case. The biggest event we’ve ever had here on our land was 50 guests for JS’ 60th birthday. After only one round of invitations, and we are at capacity (though we can accommodate a few more supporters if they are willing to eat from paper plates:) We decided from inception that our wedding will happen here on our land, so we also have considerations of parking and all other event details. Preparation photos to come soon – we’ve been busy!

Our guests hail from these places:

– Washington
– British Columbia
– Oregon
– California
– Colorado
– Texas
– Georgia
– North Carolina
– Massachusetts
– New York
– Hawaii

Wow!