June 3: Work Begins!

Today Justin and I went down to the site to start marking it off and prepare for the excavators coming next week. The weather was much more conducive than a couple of days ago. We took delivery of two truckloads of topsoil and a truckload of gravel. The surface of the site right now is a mix of rock and construction debris--not very friendly to plants, or to rainwater permeation. So we're going to cover the planted areas with soil, and the walkways with gravel, for a more pleasant surface that will also reduce runoff.

The first thing we did was unload Justin's car, which was filled to the brim with silt fencing, stakes, and other materials, topped with rolls of hay. I'm sure he's glad to get most of his car back.

We needed to mark the center of the site with a stake, so we measured it off from the side of the Velocity building. Hammering the stake into the ground was not happening--it took some digging to break up some of the surface rock and get to softer dirt. Finally, the center was marked!

Once we had the stake in place, we used string to spray-paint circles, marking the boundaries of the rings of the garden. Justin got a good quad workout:

We made good progress. Next week the excavators come to build the berms for the trees, and lay some of the soil and gravel.