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Whew! Today I started work on the new bed.

It's going to be big -- about 75 feet long, and I'm not sure yet how wide. Probably the wall will curve, so the width will vary. But probably around 10 feet wide on average. Which makes for a large area that has to be cleared of weeds. Some of which are actually small trees, plus an infestation of privets and runaway vines.

Anyway, I started by attacking one of the biggest privet shrubs. I worked until I was so tired I could barely lift the digging bar. Which was a pathetic 45 minutes. In my defense, that digging bar is really heavy. As I've mentioned before, it's a 6 foot long iron pole with a chisel blade. You stab it into the ground all the way around the shrub or tree, until you've chopped through all the roots and can pry it out.

This was a big shrub: the area I dug out was over 2 feet in diameter. Unfortunately it came out in pieces, so I won't get a good picture of it after it's out. I got almost the whole thing out before I was too exhausted to continue. There's only a chunk of thick underground root left.

This is the perfect weather for hard work like this: cool enough that there's no danger of overheating, but not so cold you get a chill. If I can manage a half hour to hour of work every day, I'll have all the big trees and shrubs dug out of this bed before you know it. Just call me Stabby McStabberson!