How does my garden grow, and an entertainment center.

The garden is growing, despite the rocky, clay soil it's planted in, and despite the rain that doesn't seem to end!  I can't remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post, we fertilized the garden space with guano- bat poop.  I didn't know how much to use, so I used all that I could get my hands on.  Rod swept it up from the barn floor and brought me bucket loads, but that supply is gone...if only I could work out a deal with the bats to poop when they fly over the garden.... Knowing that probably isn't going to happen, I've been searching for dried chicken manure.  I found several online stores that sell it, but finally found it in 50 lb. bags at a local farm supply store.  Now my fertilizer problem is solved, if only it wouldn't rain quite so much!  We haven't stepped into the yard or the garden in days, to do so would result in becoming stuck and having to leave your shoes behind in the mud to slog to safety!  Half the yard had been cleared of the debris that was raked up with the York rake, and I managed to get that area planted with grass seed before the rain started.  According to the weather forecast we were supposed to have steady rain for a day, warm temperatures, then on again off again rain for a few more days, perfect for starting grass!  What we got instead were cloud bursts, such heavy rain that it washed the grass seed into the puddles that formed in the yard.  I can see this from the door in Chris's room, I can't see if ALL the seed did this, but if the seed does sprout grass, it will probably grow in clumps with sparse areas in between.  Grass seed is expensive..I was really bummed out about this event.
On Wednesday evening, while Chris was at Youth Group, I planned to do some shopping.  On the way to the store I realized I had forgotten my list and all my coupons, and suddenly I was left trying to think what to do for two hours.  So, I wandered into stores I've never been in before, the first one was a furniture store that sells only Sauder furniture, which is mostly office and bedroom furniture.  It's inexpensive because it's not solid wood and you have to assemble it yourself.  I've been looking for an entertainment center but they are so expensive and I'm not willing to spend so much money on one piece of furniture.  But, there was one at the Sauder furniture store that I could live with, and it was on sale...for one more day.  So, with that series of events that changed my plans for the evening, I ended up with an entertainment center, in two heavy boxes, that got loaded into my van. Then the nightmare began....according to the instructions the first step was to unpack everything, compare it to the parts list, and make sure everything was there.  That took me until 1:30 am to do that, and in doing so realized that at least half of the parts were not labeled and the only way to know what part the unlabeled ones were was to study them closely and compare them to the pictures on the parts list, that's why I was up so late.  The next day I started to assemble, I made two horrible mistakes and had to go backwards to fix them, I was able fix the mistakes, but that took a lot of time.  By 3:30 am I had everything together except the drawers, which I finished when I got up this morning.  Now when the guys get home we can move the tv onto the center and set it in place, and hopefully it won't fall apart!  That was a really big job, but I would do it again, I don't mind that it's not high quality furniture, especially when I think of the 100's and 100's of dollars I saved!  I'm going to need that money I saved to buy more grass seed!!

The Garden:

Besides seeing Rod raking debris with the York rake, you can also see the garden behind him and compare it to the next picture.  The plants that look as if they are coming out of Rod's face are potato plants...  The next picture is just one week later....

The plants at the bottom of the picture are those potato plants I pointed out in the first picture.  Amazing amount of growth, I need to work out there, tie up tomatoes, thin onions and beets...but, I know I would sink if I try to walk there.

The Entertainment Center:

These are most of the parts to put this thing together, labeled and laid out in the order I'd use them in.
The old stand we used when we lived in the garage is in the background, Chris will get that for his room.

The finished project, Harley is very happy to have floor space to sprawl in again!  He didn't care much for this production, he'd sit and stare at me with big sad eyes.  When I had to work on the floor he'd walk between my arms and sit on whatever I was working on.  And he really didn't like me staying up so late, he had several methods of letting me know it was time to go to bed!