Behold: grass!

A small shot, but you can see the green beginning to arise beneath the straw.

It actually has gotten greener since yesterday, and by next week I expect to have a good start on the lawn.

Of course, this is probably the winter rye, which sprouts fast and is an annual. The actual grass probably hasn’t even come up yet.

Still, it’s a start, and I think it will go a long way to showing others who remain unconvinced of the whole venture that it will be a quite lovely space indeed. It will in any case be prettier than what was back there before I started, which was this:

Pretty scuzzy, actually. So in any case, the cool elegance of the labyrinth is a vast improvement.

Here’s a shot of the new landshaping I did the other day:

This is where I decided to keep the dirt level in front of the glider at least past the little oak tree.

I used some of the leftover paving stones to create a little earth dam there. It juts into the bank of the northern arc of the labyrinth, but does not touch it. I hauled the remaining dirt from the carport down and filled it in.

In other news, I went researching the availability of ferns today. I found several varieties that will serve admirably in the low sunlight and mostly moist soil in the yard. Now I just have to figure out how best to deploy them. They are not cheap.

Last week I planted a few nandinas down at the back corner. There was already one there, a “volunteer” as a lady of a certain age in Newnan would say, and it dawned on me that they would look good in a clump in that particular spot. For one thing, they would cover up the ugly job someone did, and it wasn’t me, in finishing off the chainlink fence there. For another, they would remind me of my grandmother’s back yard, which had a row of unkillable nandinas along the hogwire fence between her backyard and what used to be ours when I was wee.

I also planted some ground cover, the name of which I do not recall, on the mound in the labyrinth. It does not seem to be doing well, but that might have been because of the cold weather. Perhaps as it warms up it will revive and cover the mound with a lush carpet. It could happen.

Grass is growing in the labyrinth.

Here’s what I haven’t bought since January 1:

Books:

• Percy Jackson: the demigod files, Rick Riordan , Sort of a one-off volume in the tradition of Rowling’s Beedle the Bard, giving us short tales concerning Percy and his buddies at Camp Half-Blood.
• Percy Jackson: Book 5: The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan , The final installment of the series, to be published in May. These are great little tales.
• The graveyard book, Neil Gaiman , The 2009 Newbery winner.
• Wabi Sabi, Mark Reibstein , The 2008 Caldecott winner

Music:

• Mystic chords & sacred spaces, Steve Roach, and Body Electric, Vir Unis , These showed up in my Pandora “New Age” station one day when I was working on the labyrinth. I can always use more labyrinth music. Perhaps I should write some of my own. Hm…
• Time Cycle, Lukas Foss , He had like his 100th birthday or something recently, some kind of celebration in NYC, and this alerted me to his stuff.
• The death of Klinghoffer, John Adams , A student production in NYC got good reviews and revived interest in the work.

And most of all:

This is the Take-Away Tray from the Museum of Modern Art. It was featured in The Week magazine on their little Consumer page. I like it for the back yard, both for toting drinks and for moving around the dozens of votary candles necessary for evening activities. However, for $90 “on sale,” it is definitely on the Do Not Buy list for the time being.

I’m also not buying updates to iWork and iLife; a complete upgrade to my Adobe DreamWeaver suite is also waiting for a paycheck or two this summer.

Here’s what I have bought: tango lessons, and a couple of dinners out, and a few presents for friends who needed them. Some materials for the ongoing labyrinth project. Not bad.

I got to work all day in the yard today, beautiful weather, lots to accomplish.

My major project, and there are no pictures because I didn’t take any when it was daylight and now I’m out by the fire, was to level out the ground in the northeastern quadrant. The ground just sort of sloped away in front of the glider/swing area down to the fence on the north edge of the property. I thought it would look better if it were level at least in the glider area, so I built a little “dam” at the 1:00 position and filled it in with dirt. It will be very lovely once the grass has grown.

Moving the dirt down from the carport area means that that area is now smooth and ready to be seeded. It also means the huge blue tarp I bought when the dirt was delivered could be moved to the back yard to be dried and folded. So that was major.

This was minor, but it was important. As I laid out the labyrinth last September, I took four clay pots and set them into the ground to hold citronella candles. Now that everything is finalized, I was able to move those pots into the actual positions of the four cardinal points of the compass.

It was actually a bit odd, I found myself resisting making the change, because, after all, isn’t this a semi-sacred space? How can you change what you’ve already put down? But I slapped myself, figuratively, to remind myself that where the pots had been placed were not the actual points of the compass. Now they are.

I also did a fair amount of cleaning up: tools put away, re-routed the extension cord to the porch by cable-tying it to the tree and up to the deck, tables rearranged, many leaves raked and put on the street, and the brick edging for the glider area reset.

Finally, I took the large terracotta pipe that I uncovered when I tilled the entire area and set it in the ground at the entrance to the bamboo area. Lichtenbergians will know the area I’m talking about and will also understand the term lingam.

Now it’s 8:30 and I’m sitting by the fire after a generous supper of hamburgers and fried accoutrements. Also several life-giving beverages. It’s just about time for dessert.

Beautiful day outside, and actual free time. So I worked in the back yard all day, finally getting the labyrinth seeded with grass seed.

Since it’s been over a month since I finished getting all the topsoil in, I had to go back and till the entire thing with my handy little garden weasel style tiller. Sounds hard, but it wasn’t, since the dirt was two inches of loose dirt to begin with. It only took about an hour to churn up the whole thing.

Here it is partly finished. I thought this was a pretty shot:

Here’s a close-up. In the afternoon light, the chunks of dirt formed lovely patterns:

Then I had to go back and break up all the chunks with a garden rake. That also took about an hour:

Finally, I mixed my two bags of deep shade grass seed with the bag of winter rye, and proceeded to sow my seed. Finally I covered it all with straw. You will notice that although my supplier sold me too much dirt (I’m still figuring out what to do with about three wheelbarrows full), they didn’t sell me enough straw. Or maybe I don’t know how to distribute it. No matter, I will buy more tomorrow.

I also did a general cleanup of the back yard, cutting up limbs and stacking wood; moving patio furniture around; and cleaning up where the old Mercedes -Benz used to sit. (We sold it last week.) The dirt there smells awfully of gasoline.

I finally got my drill press put together yesterday, and had a blast all afternoon drilling things.

My main goal was to get a little trio of lighting fixtures done. Here they are:

There’s a piece of rebar driven into the ground, and each of the paving stones has a hole drilled through its center. I have probably given myself lung cancer doing it. (I bought dust masks today.)

The white tubes are actually plastic tubes from my wide-format printer at school, i.e., the “poster printer.” It prints on 24″-wide rolls, and these are at the center. It dawned on me that a candle sitting inside one of these would light up the whole tube.

The tubes are sitting in pieces of wood, through which I have drilled enormous holes in the top half, and smaller holes in the bottoms to fit onto the rebar. The number of drill bits I have added to my collection is very impressive.

So now I have these three lights sitting in an attractive little grouping over in the ivy. I’ll test them tonight, and if they’re as lovely as I hope, I can make more.

Yesterday morning there was an enormous branch down off the pecan tree in the First Baptist parking lot. I retrieved it for firewood, but it was doing a nice zen number, so I dragged it out to the middle of the labyrinth for a while:

It is very marvelous at night, when light from the house hits it and it glows dimly white, its fractal probings of the darkness contrasting starkly with the geometry of the labyrinth paths. It reminds me of the White Tree of Minas Tirith, actually.

In the upper right of that photo, you can see what I did today for the most part: haul dirt down the driveway again and build up the northern sweep of the labyrinth. It’s a lot more level now, although you probably cannot tell from the photo. I have some dirt still left over; I may use it to shore up the northern end, or perhaps the western rim. Don’t know yet.

Also today, in the same vein as the light tubes, I built wooden holders for cans of Sterno. These will sit on the little plinths at the ends of the arms of the labyrinths and flame brightly. Until someone is scorched. I’d actually like to built the tower/columsn I’ve discussed previously, and put the flames on top of them. If I could be sure they wouldn’t be knocked against, spilling flaming Sterno on drunken and barefoot labyrintheers.

It is finished.

Notice the holiday votives. I think they’ll be right purty.

Here’s a closeup of the center:

I’ve sunk the bricks into the soil and dug out a little bit of a hole to give the effect.

So, at some point I have to plant grass seed. I’m going to wait until after the rain this week just to see where the water flow issues are.

Tomorrow night I don’t have Masterworks, the dress rehearsal for Thursday’s concert is on Tuesday, so I’ll put together my drill press, finally, and work on some lighting fixtures for the area.

At 11:35 this morning, to the strains of the second movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” I finished filling in the labyrinth:

I have this much dirt left:

I think I was oversold. However, after lunch I will lay in dirt around the labyrinth so that it actually is part of the landscape rather than rising abruptly from it, and as I’ve mentioned before, shore up the carport. That ought to take the rest of the afternoon.

Here, by dawn’s light, is yesterday’s work:

And here, from the side angle, you can see the northern edge finally complete. I will have to add more dirt around the edges to keep it from collapsing in the rain this week. It feels odd to have it done.

I’m now waiting until 9:00, the time at which I in good conscience can start throwing dirt into the wheelbarrow outside my neighbor’s bedroom window.

There is a distinct possibility that I have too much dirt. The only problem with that is what to do with it to get it out of the driveway today a) so Ginny can park there, and b) it doesn’t turn into mud with the rain predicted for tomorrow. I need to build up the ground next to the carport, so I can probably use all of it there, and the northern edge of the labyrinth can stand a lot more, so I may be OK in terms of having a place to put all of it.

No pictures, because it was too dark when I finished, and the camera’s battery died.

However, I accomplished exactly my goal for the day: fill in the outer three circuits, raise the outer circuit on the north side to the level of the others, and lay out the final course of paving stones.

It’s done. Tomorrow, I fill in the inner four circuits and set the compass point bricks level in the ground with the granite center.

Yesterday afternoon I picked up the granite pieces that form the center of the labyrinth:

After I get all the topsoil laid in, I’ll sink the bricks to the same level as the granite. (The bricks are aligned with the cardinal points of the compass.)

I love the way it reflects the sky. Later I will scoop out a hole in the center, and next summer I will make a bowl to fit in there. It will probably be blue. I like the way the bricks will hang out a little over the bowl (although I haven’t yet thought of a way to make the grooves for the bricks to fit into accurate from 225 miles away.)

Here it is in situ:

And finally, this morning, the topsoil was delivered. We ended up dumping it in the driveway:

I began schlepping it to the back yard, after I took a few moments to construct a ramp to get the wheelbarrow down the steps to the level of the labyrinth. It’s lunchtime at the moment, and this is how much I’ve gotten done so far:

I got dirt laid out in the little center gap area, and then started with the path. I’ve done the first circuit, and this afternoon I will start pushing out from there. My goal for today is to get the outer two circuits done, which includes building up the north edge and actually getting the last course of stones laid. I might get some of the central circuits done, but I’m not making that the goal.

In any case, I should be done by Sunday evening.