Farm Expansion Step 1 – Sod Busting

I thought about my paternal grandfather’s family while digging the new flower beds.  The work involved carving out a sod rectangle with my spade, shearing off and carrying away the grassy part and the first few inches on top, and breaking up the clods left behind in the proto-bed.  I did this many times, maybe 600.  The brick-like extractions were stacked in a sod wall.  The blog’s title picture was taken near the beginning of the project.  By mid-march when the last brick was added the wall was about as long as a school bus, but half as wide and a third as tall.  It is composting now and will feed the daffodil beds we are planning for this fall.

Grandpa Morrison came to mind during all this sod busting because he was born on the Nebraska prairie, in a sod house.  That’s him with his hand on the (I presume) family dog.  And that’s his birth-house behind them.  

The younger of my two great aunts is being held by my great grandmother.  I know nothing about her or their life in those days.  My sod-busting ruminations were pure speculation.

I did not tire of the work.  In fact I’m looking for more bed-making.  Maybe it’s in my blood.