Day 220

When I needed dirt to fill our garden boxes and holes around the property, I called our local farming friends. Within a few hours, a big pile of dirt was in our front yard. So when the time came to get sand, I knew who to call.

Or so I thought. 

They were happy to get sand, but I had simply waited too long to make such a request. They were booked out for a few weeks and couldn't commit to delivering sand any time soon. Not sure exactly what their timetable might be, I decided to see if I could find another quicker option. One option was to reach out to local landscaping companies and see if they could help. According to my estimations and from calculations I did online, we would need just over four tons of sand to fill our sixteen foot long by ten foot wide box to a depth of about eight inches. Four tons of sand sounded like way too much initially, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't all that much. I knew it wasn't all that much when every local place I could find required a minimum order of twenty tons for delivery.

Our next option was to purchase bags of play sand in bulk from local stores and fill the back of the van, probably making multiple trips. This was the process I used for my first sandbox creation, However, that sandbox was considerably smaller. Looking at the price per bag and how many bags we would need, it just wasn't physically or economically feasible.

I was resigned to just wait it out a few weeks until my farming friends could help me out. But my son had already inquired about the box and was clearly itching to get it filled with sand so he could start playing with it.

I decided to look at one last option. I enjoy browsing through the buy, sell, and trade places on Facebook. I've found things like rain barrels, chicken accessories, and other farm items this way.

As if it was a sign from a higher power, a recently published post might solve two problems at once.