Incredibly Hot Day

"Hey, it's going to be 100 degrees on Friday, what do you want to do?"
"I know! Let's get a Zipcar truck for the day and do lots of manual labor and running around!"
"Sounds great!"

We didn't actually have that conversation, Matt and I, but that's what we did. To be fair, I didn't know when I reserved the truck that our work day would fall during the hottest days of the year. But it was the last Friday of my vacation, thus the last Friday of my real summer and the truck was reserved and so the work had to be done. Matt was a champ about it.
Just for fun, I started the day by jogging three miles to pick up the truck. I picked it up at 8:00, so I would have a few hours to run around before Matt and I started in on the heavy lifting.
My philosophy for renting a Zipcar is to be in constant motion. Because the cars rent by the hour or day and you don't have to pay gas, the best value for the Zipcar is to just keep moving. I plotted a circular route that would get me to all the driving places I've been needing to go.
First stop: Goodwill. My donations look paltry in the bin, but they were taking up a lot of space by the door.
At Portland Recycling center I recycled all the plastic the curbside recycling doesn't take.
On to the Metro Paint where I bought a screen for a compost bin.
At the Metro Hazardous Waste Facility I recycled my hazardous waste: a 5 gallon bucket of "waste paint" left over by the builders and a jar of dead batteries.
The next stop was Linnton Feed & Seed where I forgot to take a picture, but where I bought ingredients for fertilizer, 2 bales of straw and also a dozen fresh eggs. I returned home, and Matt and I unloaded. I left Matt strewing the hay about the backyard while I went to the City of Portland's Sunderland Recycling Center to buy dirt. I bought a 50/50 blend of compost and dirt for the low price of $12.00 per cubic yard.

Here is the yard.
I've lined my truck up so the loader can fill it.
And here the loader carefully dumps the dirt into the truck bed.
Back at home, Matt has put down the straw, both in our yard and Leo's. We are getting rid of some of our grass and expanding the garden.
We emptied the compost bins in the yard, spread the half finished compost over the straw and moved three of the four bins to the side of the house.
Our empty bins.
Next we laid down cardboard over the straw.
Also in Leo's yard.
More of Leo's yard. I'm determined to take over from the weeds which are still a battle.
This is half a cubic yard of dirt ready to be moved. Did I mention it is about 100 degrees right now?
We covered the straw/cardboard with the dirt. We also filled the herb bed out front. It took three truckloads. After finishing that and cleaning out the truck bed, we drove to Washington County so Matt could return a library book and then stopped at Dairy Queen for blizzards. After that, I dropped Matt off and drove to Lowe's, bought some hoses and watering devices as well as some rebar. Then I stopped at the Multnomah County library to drop off my books. After that I drove to school, to pick up my bike rack which I left there because of the Hottest Day of the Year Ride. My last stop was Fred Meyer to buy something to hold the hoses I bought. I returned home at 9 p.m. The truck had been in use 13 hours, which I consider getting my money's worth. The fee divided by hours in use came to about $6.00 per hour. I returned it by 8 a.m. the next morning and took the bus back home. Whew!