My father was a master gardener. We moved into our house in August 1960. Over the years he augmented the swampy soil with truckloads of topsoil and so much peat moss I’m surprised than one of our dogs was not named “Sphagnum”.

He grew everything. Amazing veggies. Massive spruce trees. Pin oaks. Rhododendrons. Flower out the wazoo.

Me not so much. I can kill anything with roots.

So far this year I’ve planted a hibiscus that lasted a week. Undaunted, I started a project to clean up the wreckage from a ground up maple tree stump in our front yard.

After removing all the mulch from the stump, I ordered 35 bags of topsoil and filled the gash in the lawn on April 30.

Next I spread grass seed onto the topsoil and watered it twice a day.

On Mother’s Day I transplanted a volunteer pin oak from the back yard to the front to replace the maple.

And I watered and waited.

Now three weeks out the grass seed has barely germinated and the pin oak appears to be dying.

I’ve added some more seed, scraped the soil with a hand rake, and am hoping that three days of rain will win the day.

In addition to moving all the stump mulch and spreading the bags of top soil, I also bought and spread 16 bags of pine bark mulch and spread them elsewhere in the yard. It goes without saying that moving all the mulch and dirt totally wrecked my back.

I am back to doing my back exercises and riding Big Nellie, my recumbent. It still hurts to walk without my cane but I’ve banging out beaucoup miles without pain.