Phew. If I point to my ear lobes, those are not sore on me. Everything else is. I may have to have someone feed me tomorrow. I can still handle a 12 oz curl so my first beer is in hand.

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My friend's truck has some gotchas to overcome. The key was at his house, and so was the truck's battery. So I got those last night, and put the battery on the charger overnight. I drove over to where he stores it, and put the battery in, after cleaning the terminals and the cables. Oh, and the driver's side door lock does not work, so I have to open from the passenger side, and crawl across to unlock the driver's door. And the inside door handle on the driver's is broken so I have to roll the window down, and play contortionist to reach the outside door button. The rear view mirror glued to the windshield has fallen off.

The starter just clicked, but after 6 or 7 tries, it spun and the truck would not start. Oh yea, one more gotcha. It has two fuel tanks, and only the rear one works! So flip the switch to rear, and it fired up. It is a 5 speed manual, but no issues there. So off to the bulk soil place. I asked the front end loader guy for 1.5 yards. When I went back to the scale it was 1.16 tons. It was a low rider, but I only had to 4 go miles to get home.

The the shoveling commenced. And continued for hours.

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I started on the west side. A plank of 2x12 from before I put in the pit for the scissor lift, 10 years ago, and a concrete block made me a ramp for the wheelbarrow. Dump in the soil, and spread it some. Then move the ramp to the other side. Then to the south side for the ramp.

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About a thousand wheelbarrow loads, (mom told me a million time to never exaggerate!) or it felt like it, TA-DA! The truck is unloaded, and the soil is partly compacted.

We are supposed to get rain tomorrow, so some settling will occur. We will finish it off with bags of top soil that the El Camino can handle.

The pickup is hosed out, the driveway is cleaned off, and I am ready for my second beer and some sitting on my butt.

Mrs. Carrera did assist and she is sore as well. I was alone in the wheelbarrow dumping. Time for my second beer! I will wait until tomorrow to return the truck.

That load was less than I expected. The truck has a real bed! I'd go for 4 beers.

Nice work, Glen...thanks for the photos and narrative!

Your wife is very talented with her gardening.

Working in the garden is very satisfying......:)

Nice! Well done. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you sore the next day (or 3). :D

Looks like a win to me! Congrats!!

Well I was able to feed myself. My shoulders, legs and back ar a bit sore, but not as bad I was fearing. Time to get the pickup back to it's storage place, and the battery and key back to the owner.

And on the seventh day .... Glen drank beer :D

Good job, sir!

This weekend, I'm sanding the upstairs floors. I was a little sore this morning, pretty much everywhere except my arms. I'll be worse tomorrow.

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The master gardener slave driver wanted us to go to Lowe's to buy just 10 - 40 pound bags of soil. Without using a calculator, I figured that was 400 pounds plus moisture.

It rained the other day so some of the bags were rather wet, and the soil came out looking like a dinosaur left a deposit without any odor fortunately. ;)

I knew 400 pounds was a load, so I aired up the air bags in the rear of the El Camino to 20 PSI. The guy loading at Lowe's just dumped and tossed in each bag on the passenger side as it was closest side. I felt a sudden drop on that side and suspect the old air bag blew.

We got home without issue, and unloaded it all.

Today I put the Elky up on my lift, and sure enough, popped air bag right at the top edge at the fold. So remove the shock, lower the suspension and remove the spring, and cut the old airbag out. To get the new one in, remove the rubber cap, step on the bag to partially deflate it, and put the cap back in place. Twists and wrestle the new one into place, and put it back in place and attach shock and done.

The Elky came with Monroe air shock from the factory to load level. They would not last a year without failure. They were warrantied, so it was free replacement just my labor. After the third set, I gave up and installed air bags, but then it requires a change to a much better shock, Bilstiens. So in the trash went the air shocks. I tried to go with just the old shocks, but the rear of the car was like a pogo stick with Monroe shocks. The Bilstiens work great.

So that is done. Next comes digging holes for the new plants she has already purchased.

Question for you Glen.
If that's the street right there next to the sidewalk, why didn't you just back the truck up onto the curb and shovel the dirt directly into the new flower bed instead of using a wheel barrow?

I would have had to back the truck up over the curb. The sprinkler heads and lines would have be destroyed. There are two right in the way, and the lawn is still soft from recent rains. We would have had deep ruts, and the pickup still blocking part of the street, and more sprinkler repair to do. I thought about it, but I did not want to block part of the street.

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From the street side.

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From the top side. Our front yard has about 6 feet of slope top to bottom. Without a ladder or drone I can't shoot a straight down photo of this new garden. It does look better with flowers in it.

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The new flower bed matches nicely with the dry stack one we built several years ago. It has been run into twice from one pizza delivery guy and some random stranger backing up the driveway to turn around.

Looks great, Glen...love the blues and purples! All good varieties for the summer too!

It does look grreat, Glen. But what, no drone shot? Is this another one of those barefoot cobbler's daughter stories or have you just not had time for a flyover?

Glen, that yard is beautiful but we all know that aint your doing.

Go on line and google concrete calculator and it will give you the exact amount to fill that area, but make adjustments for loose garden soil but its pretty accurate.

How much soil will I need?
 

We have a old drone that we bought used to play with. It would work for the garden pics. We don't use a drone in our company at all. My business partner flies our Cessna 182T to shoot aerials. Kinda overkill for a pictures of out flowers. I can climb a ladder faster and easier than setting up that old drone.

A very nice style you have going on there Glen. I've always been a fan of the stone look for houses and landscaping.

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When I put in thee tall sprinkler head it looked like it was too tall. Not anymore, it is swallowed by her growing plants.