Our yard is solid lava, except where the previous owners (who built the house) brought in a backhoe and broke up several rows of lava to make room for the roots of the trees they wanted to plant. Many of those rows are still just mounds of chunked-up lava, weed-filled areas we can’t mow because of the rough terrain. So, we’re digging out those areas with a pickaxe, and using the dug-up chunks as flowerbed edging. The weeds have broken up a lot of the lava and created rich soil, so I’m separating out the weeds and their roots, then using the soil in the flowerbeds.
It’s a back-and-forth multi-step process: removing the weed-filled topsoil, digging out the chunks of lava and setting them aside, sifting through the soil to remove weeds and roots, then brushing the soil back into the flowerbed before moving down a bit and repeating the process.
Yesterday, I whacked at a chunk of lava with the pickaxe, and to my amazement, a spray of electric blue glitter-sparkles spewed forth and scattered across the soil. The lava is still black, but with a glitter-blue sheen that sparkles in the sun. The dirt sparkles like it’s been sprinkled with peacock-blue glitter! How special is that?
But unfortunately, my next task is to cover up all those blue sparkles with a thick layer of mulch to help the plants I’m setting out take off and then take over to leave no room for weeds. Anyhow, I’ll know those blue sparkles are in there even though I can’t see them, and that feels like there’s a little bit of hidden magic in my yard.
