My Pocono Garden: The Zen of Fill Dirt

in my dreams...

When I decided that I needed some fill dirt to level out my lawn, I first called a contractor who does a lot of work for folk in the area… and the message went to voicemail. Sure, I thought, he’ll call back right away. After all, we’re in a recession and everyone needs as much work as possible. A few days later I still hadn’t received a return call so I began to scout out another supplier.

The local paper had just one ad about dirt that promised 20 yards of screened fill dirt for $200; so I gave the man a call to arrange for delivery, and lucky me, he arrived only five hours late with my fill.

Some of you might wonder exactly what one gets for $200 these days… what I received was a large mound of rocks and stones and boulders (with some dirt mixed in). I would guess that the mound dumped onto my lawn was about six feet tall and 20 feet in diameter. I wasn’t really worried about the excess amount of rock as I figured that I could use the rubble in some kind of ornamental fashion.

What worried me was just how long it would take to finish this project – a bucket of dirt at a time. Yes, I know that the project would probably have gone a lot faster if I had used a wheelbarrow… but I liked the notion of getting up at dawn for a few hours of relaxing daily work. It’s nice to be out when the sun is just starting to crest over the mountaintop and while Nature is waking up to a new day. Also, the gnats and bees and wasps are still asleep at that time of the morning which makes the work that much easier.