Progress update on moving rocks

Work continues on moving rock and fill dirt to build up the railroad site. The giant pile of dirt in the driveway is gradually reducing in size as I'm moving it one wheelbarrow load at a time.

Following the back yard progress pictures are a few flower pictures from nature walks over Memorial Day weekend. So many things are in bloom right now.

My trusty wheelbarrow and I somehow ended up putting in over 17,000 steps today. I suppose from the wheelbarrow's perspective that would be about 17,000 wheel rotations.

Today I focused on building up the retaining wall for the raised middle section and backfilling it with dirt.

I left an alcove where the irrigation pipe is in case I ever need to dig down to the junction with the main pipe.

Another view of the raised area. The PE&A mainline will pass by here on the lower level while a branch line will access the upper area.

And here is a photo at the end of the day capturing progress. I still have a little work to do on the wall and many more wheelbarrows of dirt to move.

 

As I was working through my rock piles today I sorted out any flat rocks for use in the prairie nature trail. I'll set these rocks in the ground once I have enough for the trail.

Lady's slipper orchid

Showy phlox. I should have some of this blooming in my garden by next year.

Sticky geranium. This is a favorite of mine and I have added three to my garden so far, and hopefully they may bloom by next year.

Sugar bowls. I'm trying to start these from seed.

Trillium

Western iris

I have some native plants in progress. These seedlings I started from seeds I gathered at various locations last year. And I'm waiting to see if I have more seeds germinate now that the weather is warming up.

Moving earth and rock

Progress on the PE&A has been at a rather slow pace the past two weeks as other outdoor projects have taken precedence. I expect the pace to increase as most everything else in the yard is now done. I've put at least a hundred new plants in the ground, and another hundred in pots. And now, aside from watering, mowing and weeding, I think I'm finally ready to work on the railroad!

In my last post I described the five tons of rock that showed up on the front lawn. Once I had all of those moved back the train area, I then had five yards of fill dirt delivered. So my task now is to arrange all of the rocks and dirt to create the landscape for the railroad.

The railroad landscape is starting to take shape as I'm having fun selecting and placing rocks.

Most of the rocks I could pick up, but there were a few larger boulders which were too heavy for me to carry by myself. I thought a sled would work but I don't have a plastic one on hand and I couldn't find a retailer with one in stock this time of year. So I thought I would make a sled out of plywood. This worked, but it took an enormous amount of energy to drag across the lawn.

I realized a better solution was to continue using the wheelbarrow, but as I couldn't lift the heavier rocks into it, I built a ramp and just rolled the rocks in. With this method I had all the remaining boulders in the back yard in no time at all.

The work area in progress. I needed to first remove the existing plants as they're in an area that will be buried. I transplanted most of them to other spots of the yard.

The first rock wall

And the second rock wall with backfilling in progress.

This is another project I've been working on, my piece of Palouse prairie. I'm using flags to help keep track of everything and visualize placement. Pink flags are plants that carried over from last fall. Red/orange flags are new plantings this year. And there are more plants to come—I have about 75 native plant seedlings I started from seed over the winter that will be transplanted later this year once they've had a chance to mature.

And speaking of native plants, I went hiking twice this week and the wildflowers in bloom right now are amazing. Arrowleaf balsamroot is the dominate flower at the moment and you can find entire meadows and hills covered in yellow, as this photo demonstrates. Other dominate flowers right now are common camas and nine-leaf lomatium. 

A field of common camas.

I was very excited to come across this rare example of a mostly white common camas. 

Also saw some death camas. Don't eat this one! The warning is in the name.

Large-flowered triteleia

Long-spurred violet

Miner's lettuce. The tiny white flowers aren't very showy but I really like this plant and I'd like to grow some in my garden.

Prairie smoke

The PE&A is built on a solid foundation...of basalt

Despite the March-like weather this week, construction is moving forward on the PE&A. The past few days have seen thunderstorms, pouring rain, hail, graupel and occasional snow. I've been bringing seedlings inside most nights to protect them from frost. It's hard to believe this time last year I was concerned about the grass drying out as it was so hot and dry.

I've been looking for some time without much luck for a source of rocks to use for the railroad. I finally found exactly what I was looking for at Sunrise Rock in Otis Orchards which is in the Spokane Valley just a couple miles from the Idaho border. There were so many rock options I was tempted to change direction, but decided to stick with my original plan of using Columbia River Basalt. While we have many types of rocks in the Spokane area, CRB is the predominate rock throughout much of central and eastern Washington and is the most appropriate setting for the PE&A.

The source of the PE&A basalt at Sunrise Rock. The pile on the left is mostly cobbles and the pile on the right is mostly boulders. I requested a mix of the two. I was very happy to find a source that had a fair amount of rocks with weathering rather than all fresh broken surfaces.

Rocks being delivered this morning. I spread scrap lumber across the area to protect the lawn from damage.

The initial pile. All five tons of it.

And this is what the pile looked at by noon after a busy morning of moving rocks to the back yard. What's left are the medium sized boulders that are more difficult to move.

I hauled the rocks to the train area using a wheelbarrow, about a hundred feet from the curb, and sorted them by size. Boulders are on the left, medium and large cobbles are in the middle, and small cobbles and large pebbles are on the right.

I also sorted out unusual rocks such as a few non-basalt rocks which I'll use elsewhere in the yard, rocks with nice lichen growth which will go into my native plants area, and vesicular basalt which you see in this photo. When lava cools quickly, gas bubbles which normally would have time to escape become trapped. Vesicular basalt may have small bubbles, large bubbles or even tubes like a poorly made muffin.

A close-up showing some larger vesicles. In this case minerals have redeposited inside the vesicles forming tiny crystals.

I normally end posts with flower pictures but today I'm including a train picture instead. Here is a double-stack train heading eastbound across the Indian Canyon bridge. The mouth of Latah Creek is in the foreground right at its junction with the Spokane River. And overhead a KC-135R Stratotanker is heading toward Fairchild AFB.

Bloomsday and some more rail history

The first Sunday in May was this past weekend which meant it was time for Bloomsday in Spokane, the annual race and fun run (and walk) held each year since 1977. Or almost every year as it was canceled the past two years due to the pandemic. But people were back this year and a little over 29,000 people participated this year, a reasonable sized crowd even if it was the smallest number of participants since 1983.

As I was out of town on Sunday I participated in the virtual Bloomsday which means I could pick my own date and route as long as it was at least 7.46 miles long. The official course primarily sticks to arterials which are not fun to walk along so I chose a route that combined mostly trails and residential streets, but also incorporated parts of the official course so that I could include Doomsday Hill.

My starting point was Olmstead Brothers Green. I followed the Centennial Trail west which includes this segment of trail along the former Great Northern right-of-way which I mentioned in my last post. Great Northern used this section from 1902 to 1973.

I continued along the Centennial Trail all the way to the TJ Meenach bridge. This is a view from West Summit Blvd. looking northeast toward North Pettet Drive, also known as 'Doomsday Hill,' which leads down to the bridge. The southern stretch of Pettet Drive, just to the right of this photo, is on top of the right-of-way of the Seattle, Lakeshore & Eastern built in 1888, then used by the Great Northern from 1892 to 1902. This photo shows how the north part of Pettet Drive, between the red arrows, quickly drops down the hill toward the river, much faster than the old railroad did. The yellow arrows point out the old railroad grade which is still clearly visible 120 years after being abandoned.

This view shows the T J Meenach bridge over the Spokane river which is what Pettet Drive drops down to meet. My route took me to the middle of the bridge where I turned around and headed back up the hill. Yellow arrows show the old railroad grade of the Seattle, Lakeshore & Eastern. The solid yellow line is the approximate location of a bridge that went across the gulch where North T J Meenach Drive is located today. Just to the left of this photo is where the SLS&E bridge over the Spokane River was, about 1,300 feet downstream from today's T J Meenach Bridge. 

From the south end of Pettet Drive, the official Bloomsday course heads to Lindeke Street which it follows down to Broadway. I instead used A Street, Dean Avenue and Cochran Street so I could follow old trolley tracks. Most of Spokane's electric trolley tracks were removed over time and there is hardly any trace along the arterials that once had tracks. But if you look along residential streets that were once trolley routes you can still find tracks where there hasn't been a need for a major road repaving in the past century. This picture is looking down Dean Avenue to the east.

This photo is at the corner of Dean and Cochran. This particular trolley line was owned by Washington Water Power and was one of their two lines that provided service Natatorium Park along the Spokane River. I'm not sure exactly what year this line was built. From here I zig-zagged back down toward Kendall Yards and roughly followed the old Great Northern route toward Riverfront Park.

I included the clock tower from the old Great Northern depot on my route. It's also incorporated in this year's Bloomsday T-shirt design. This was my other turnaround point. From here I headed back to Olmstead Brothers Green.

Lots of shooting stars are now out all over the place.