Today was mulch day.
It was going to rain today and in case it rained hard, we wanted to prevent any erosion before the city delivered our free mulch.
We drove to Madison and bought 15 bags of mulch (30 cubic feet - just over one cubic yard). We spread the mulch next to the street so that any washed-away dirt would stay in the yard and not enter the sewer. Construction sites are required to control their runoff and I guess we probably qualified - we certainly would have seen a lot of runoff in a big rain storm with all that exposed clay topsoil.

Even with about 300 pounds of mulch, we had just enough to do the outside edges (street and sidewalk) of the large bed.

Then, Zoe wanted to plant something, but we were now out of mulch again, so we went off to the local garden center (instead of our usual Madison shop) to inquire about the price of their mulch. We took the pickup to the garden center and checked the prices - quite a bit more than in Madison for bagged mulch, but they had a huge pile of the stuff out back. We went in and got a very reasonable price for a cubic yard. Back home, with the truck bed mounded over with our mulch, we set about spreading it on the large bed. Once we had it all spread out, we realized we hadn't planted anything - the whole point of getting more mulch - and were too exhausted to start.

We went inside to rest for a bit and finally steeled ourselves to out again to plant Zoe's new Primroses. Suddenly, I got the idea that I should go get ANOTHER truckload of mulch. I'm still not certain why - maybe the intoxicating smell of triple-shredded hardwood got to me. We scrounged up $30 and I set off back to the garden center for more. The bobcat operator deposited his two heaping shovel-fulls into the truck bed and I drove carefully home. I parked the brimming-over pickup in the driveway and helped Zoe pull apart the mulch we had already spread and dig a few holes for Primroses.

After planting one and nearly planting another, Zoe looked at the tag - Partial shade! We had picked the single sunniest, driest spot in the yard! Well this just wouldn't do. We had to find another low-growing plant to put in the holes we had dug. I suggested we split one of the old ground phlox, so I dug up wizened old phlox from the front walk, flipped it over in the wheelbarrow and split it into several chunks with a shovel. Alas, one of the bits hadn't any root. We settled for the two remaining pieces and put them on opposite sides of the bed, next to the sidewalk. If they both take off, they'll spread nicely to fill the corners. We had also split our granddaddy of a lambs ear and placed a few of the bits up and down next to the main path. Some should grow, some will definitely not. The splitting was rather brutal.

At this point, Zoe went in because she was getting pretty chilled. I said I would finish spreading the second yard of mulch to take the weight off the poor truck's springs.

I pulled the truck out into the street and started shoveling mulch into the wheelbarrow. Zoe called out from the porch to ask if I had the rake. I replied that I did not and wondered why she would ask if she was going in. But then, she retrieved the rake from the garage and came out to help! Even as tired as she was, she couldn't let me finish the job alone! :)

A few of our neighbors, having watched us try to kill ourselves with work all weekend, each stopped for a moment to congratulate us or offer their good comments on our determination.
So thus ended our long Easter weekend. Two nutty gardeners, 18 hours of muscle straining labor, and a boring weedy lawn transformed into the beginnings of a beautiful garden.