Eight Dollars.

Eight dollars for half a ton of mulch. Eight dollars. I love this town, and I love the towns nearby. The dude out there in the window at the grandly named Ingleside Composting Facility knows me by sight now, knows the dog, knows to tell the guy in the scooploader not to drop two tons down on my half-ton pickup. Still: Half a ton is about all the medium mulch my truck can hold. Me: Tell me about the mulch. Scooploader guy: We got the real new stuff. That'll burn up your plants. Then we got medium, and we got old. Back there we got the real old.

I was putting in paths for the front yard. I took the medium.

Beagles barking all day, all day, and AMR has gone out of town, which means the voice of reason is out of town, which means I will soon be in jail for some kind of beaglicide. Or any of the other cides. I am on the verge of committing a cide.

Here's what we'll count in the for column: A long day of hard work. Sore body to prove it. Front yard half-weeded and mainly mulched. Paths in. Truck empty. The pachysandra looks good now that I've gotten all the henbit out of it and removed the last two drought-casualty azaleas. The ivy makes a little more sense now. Phil spent the late afternoon paper-toweling the Caddy, which I am of course counting for us. Khaki shorts, magenta golf shirt. Shades. Plus there was an emergency down the street — two ambulances, two police cars — but all the EMTs were joking around out on the lawn, and everybody left without their sirens on. One imagines all turned out well, or mainly well. Yet another baby grackle fledging in the ivy. I pathed around him. Our azalea robins remain, waiting for just the right moment.

They want the messy part of the low to ride to our south tomorrow, which means storms for them and rain for us. I'd keep a close eye on things, though. If they're wrong — and they are often enough wrong — then we get the fun and games once more. Sun today. A damn lot of sun. An amount of sun. Fifty wheelbarrowfuls of mulch, minimum. Beagles and mulch, beagles and mulch. Rain tomorrow. All but guaranteed.