A New Start - Co-op Rules!

Our house welcomed us in a friendly way: roof was on it, water had not done any damage what so ever. Doors and windows were all on and in one piece. It was so nice to see the red tip of our home visible already far away as we appraoched it.

The garden did not greet us in the same peaceful and orderly way. As soon as one could see into our court yard, actually even before, in the other side of the gate as well - all lawn was destroyed. It was done very properly and evenly by wild bores, from edge to edge, without touching flower beds. Thank God for that, all the flowers are OK and some are even blooming.

It was sad. I have worked eagerly and passionately for three summers to get it into the condition I left it. It probably took them few hours to turn it up side down. Well, it was an easy access to earth warms and other goodies, nobody there to destract them. I think neighbours let some hunters know about the attack, so some of the hunters came and did some shooting. After that they have not seen new damage, so it might have scared them little bit.
What's next? I simply cannot live like that, but I also realized that my own power is so tiny to do all that cleaning up before grass starts growing again.

So I decided to call for help. I posted an invitation to Facebook for my friends to come and help out on May 7th. As it was day before Mothers' Day, many of my far away friends from the Capital area could not make it, but local friends were really ready to jump in and to it together. As the area is close to 2 acres, I badly needed mechanized help as well. My good neighbours, local veterinarians, offered their older model tractor. I also asked another friend, a local farmer and folk dancer, who has more modern and powerful tractor. Although it is a very busy spring farming season, he had mercy on me and my hopeless situation, and also came on Saturday and did the most of the tractor work. That was enourmous help, as it made it easier for rakers to even the soil and get the grass residue out of the ground.

Going back little bit in time, when I first posted the invitation, I was very happy that so many people responded positively. First ones to back me up were my folk dancing buddies. Even few city friends were coming at first, but later on different things came up and we actualy did not see anybody on Saturday further than 30 miles from us.
My high school class-mate with her husband offered me to rent a portable lawn cutter and they brought it here with their truck. That was a good thing to have for edges and hard to get to with a tractor places. He worked on it all day, such a great help, thank you!

My class-mate herself and a good friend from gardening school era, a well known landscaping teacher were a good pair on how to do it properly. Participants were at first little doubtful, but as soon as everybody saw first results of well groomed new soil, nobody had any doubts left and the final result was amazing. Later on the neighbour's tractor was harnessed behind a big cargo base (??) and that served then as a final flattener and smoother for the raked area, before the seed could go in the ground.

To make things perfect, even old kids play shack was moved to a different location. Old stumps were moved and rotten fence postd were torn out.

During lunch hour soup, cucumber salad and cake was served. Good workers deserved even better meal, but I must admit that the spaghetti dish I tried to make, failed and I had to activate plan B and serve ready made soup. Evening ended with sauna, although everytbody was so tired that could hardly enjoy it - wash up and go to bed.

So much work got done, I cannot even belive my eyes when I go out and see the beauty back around me. I have more to do, but they gave me back hope. Thank you, Veriora, Räpina and Võru!