Spreading My Seed

Despite an incredibly late bedtime – 4am – I was surprisingly up and out of bed near 830am. More surprising, perhaps, was that I didn’t feel too bad at all. On the other hand, given all the whisky Mindy drank at the reception, I guessed she would remain in bed until 10 or 11am.

I made a pot of Starbucks coffee then played on my PC for a while. It was 10am before I headed out on the run, and at the time, I was still the only one up and awake. I ran three miles without issue. If there was any hint of grogginess before setting out, it was completely gone afterwards. I tidied up the kitchen and unloaded the dishwasher.

Mindy was finally up about the time I was getting busy whipping up some grits and an omelet. At first she wanted only some grits but ultimately opted for part of the omelet. After breakfast, I spruced up a little then left for Lowes/Home Depot to pick-up some grass seed and starter fertilizer. I stopped at Lowes first but was disappointed to find a surprisingly poor selection of grass seed. I left for Home Depot, which is only a ½ mile or so down the road.

H.D. had a better selection of seed and fertilizer. Got what I need, though spent a little more than perhaps I wanted. Between the dirt, seed, and fertilizer, I’d spent $100. Back at the house I wasted little time kicking it into gear. Before spreading any grass seed, I pulled the tractor and trailer full of top soil around and topped off the edges along the driveway as well as a few spots along the service walk back towards the deck. Satisfied that it was ready for seed, I fetched my mini hand spreader, using it first to cover the area with starter fertilizer. Next, I concocted a mixture of the new seed I bought, which was a heavy shade
Type (mostly fescues) with the Midwest blend I bought last spring, which was a combination of fescue, bluegrass and rye. And then for good measure, I threw an older, but high quality straight blue grass. I shook and stirred before applying. The hand spreader works pretty well by dispensing a fairly even coat. Took no more than 10 minutes to spread both fertilizer and seed. Once that was done I watered in softly.
Nothing left to do but care and wait for the seed to germinate.

What to do with the remaining top soil? I still had most of a heaping trailer load. It was then that I remember a few little corrections of changes I thought about making to the contour of our flower beds. In each case, it would require me adding soil to the edge of the beds to further pronounce a couple of the curves. I took my time addressing both of those areas, spreading first the dirt then tamping it into place while also forming a nice edge to look just like the existing. Looks great! Next, I fertilized and seeded the two spots. Before putting everything away, I overseeded a couple small chronic thin spots.

Still plenty of dirt remained, I decided not to just waster it, but instead dump it in a compact pile out near the compost pile for later use. I’ve already got a small pile of fill dirt (clay and stone) back there. By the time I was done, the seeded areas around the walk were already drying out. Decided to run the irrigation system on the east side zone #6. Perfect! Aside from the narrow area on the west side of the driveway, zone #6 waters all the seed.

It was another sunny, hot humid day, though I didn’t get as warm and overheated as I did on Saturday. The biting flies were much less, too. I’m guessing it was near 3pm when I got a shower, and believe me, it felt terrific. After a shower, I watched some preseason NFL though can’t recall the teams.

Because I’d be heading to a customer’s campus to carryout proactive disaster recovery testing at 3am, I planned to head to bed around 8-830pm. For the remainder of the afternoon and evening I simply relaxed around the house. And come 830pm I headed for bed watching at least part of the Bengals Cardinals SNF preseason game. As often happens, I struggled to get to sleep after dosing off a time or two earlier in the evening. Very frustrating. It must’ve been around 945pm when I got up and headed downstairs for about 45 minutes. It helped a little, and I’m guessing that it was near 11pm when I finally fell asleep, but still only lightly.