I ran forever.

Ran forever today. Seriously I felt like I had been running all day. With 29 k as my goal, D. and I headed out around 10 am after I mapped out a route along the Poco whotrail (also known as the Trabwholay). The trail is amazing. D. followed me on his bike which was great. He really motivated me, especially near the end. I felt spoiled having D. coaching me along, carrying my water bottle and all. I guess I was. I saw another runner along the way and he had someone biking alongside him as well. What we do for the ones we love right?

We went along the streets, through the woods, past some farmland, and along the river. D. took photos along the way.






I started to fade approximately around the 24 k mark. I took more walk breaks. I felt my legs starting to give up. But I made it. I did ask D. to go get the van (he had borrowed the van from work so we could take the kitties to the vet and pick up some gardening supplies on Saturday) because I did not want to walk anymore. I did and then walked some more and then I was almost home when D. arrived with the van. I was deliriously happy to see the van and couldn't stop laughing when he pulled up. Fatigue, relief, delirium or whatever you want to call it had set in.

We had planned to install the compost and that's it for Sunday. I didn't even think I had the energy to do that, but after showering and refueling with a vegan bagel, and some toasted fig and anise bread (amazingly good) with a hemp maca flax smoothie and coffee I felt pretty good. The compost bin took all of 10 or 15 minutes to set up and get started. The sun was shining down through the trees and I was enjoying being in the garden again. I placed a couple of stones and the next thing you know, D. and I are collecting slate stones from the retaining wall that's coming down and laying them out as a path to the compost bin.
D. discovered that the two year old (also named Gigi) who lives upstairs from us had left her shovel in the sand. He found it to be a suitable trowel even though I have two extra trowels from LV. Even though I offered to go get him a trowel, he kept working with the bright yellow plastic one and I must say he worked very efficiently as well.

I continued on with my cultivator raking away bits of sand and rock to place another stone. I used my hands to fill in around the rocks. We each have our methods. We only planned to lay a few stones, but then really wanted to finish the path and we did. Here's the result.
If you remember my earlier photos of this spot it was simply sand and nothing else. It's already a big improvement. I hope our homeowners like it! The steps run up to this spot (also made in the same stone) and curve along the line of the (future) garden. To the left of the path we added some soil, mushroom manure and coir to start a raised bed. Now we were really into the process and realized we would need more rocks and we would need the van to get them. Into the van we got and drove around, up the mountain until we found a spot where D. found some beautiful rocks. By the time we got home we didn't have any more energy to carry them all the way to the garden so we left them just outside our door.

Tomorrow someone is coming in to remove the tree stumps. It's all very exciting. I just hope I can walk tomorrow after all of this.