About a month ago, Ashley made a sign for the end of the driveway of our farm. She wood-burned redwood boards and then added a varnish to keep it from rotting in the rain.

Her and Doug built a sign post for it and then it just sat there for weeks because we did not know how to get the post into the ground because the soil was too rocky to use our post hole digger. In Hawaii generally, but definitely where we live, the soil is VERY rocky.

The solution we came up with was to build a 3x3 planter box and cement the sign into the box.

The WWOOFers built the planter box out of two 2"x12" boards. The day they built it, we all drove down to then end of the driveway with our supplies to cement the sign. It was just our luck that as soon as we got there it started POURING rain.

Aly was the only one smart enough to wear a rain coat..

We got the sign set up, and filled the box with rocks so that we would not need to use as much cement. Because rocks are free and cement is not.

Sam mixed the cement in a green tub we brought.

And he and Joey started shoveling it into the box.

By the time it was done, we were all SOAKED and we were worried that there was too much water for the cement to hold. But it held!

Once the cement had set, Ashley and I went to the nursery to pick out flowers to plant in the top of the box. We picked three heights of flowers and plants. Some little purple ones that hang over the side, some taller purple ones to go in the middle and some leafy Colius for around the pole.

Joey and Sam filled the top of the box with potting mix and planted up all of the flowers while Doug and I were out. It was so exciting today to come home to this!

 

We can't wait until they all fill out a little more and really start hanging over the side of the box. So pretty!