A Tale of the Raised Beds…
Something that Dave really enjoys, is growing produce in our garden.
Let me tell you about the raised beds saga….
When we moved to our house in 2022 there were six old raised beds at the far end of the garden. The sleepers were rotting and needed replacing, but with so much to do, together with a very busy work diary, Dave left them, and grew produce in them as they were. But for this year’s crops, Dave wanted to make new beds.
So, towards the end of last year he started to dismantle the old beds. We decided to construct new beds using treated reject scaffold boards instead of sleepers, so, scaffold boards purchased, Dave set to work. Bit by bit the new beds were coming together and Dave was thinking ahead, planning to mix rotted horse manure in with the existing soil. The rotted manure, combined with horse bedding contains abundant organic material, which functions like a sponge in the soil, it retains essential nutrients and moisture which enhances the soil structure and benefits growth.
However, the raised beds construction ground to an abrupt halt on Saturday 27th January. Dave was outside, cutting timber for the last bed and I was working on the laptop by the log burner in the living room, when all of a sudden I heard urgent, loud banging on the back door. I jumped out of my skin, as did Inca, our cat, who with wide fearful eyes bolted upstairs. I jumped off the settee, hurried to the door and yanked it open. Dave was standing there, holding his hands together, “QUICK!” he said, urgently. “What???” I asked, puzzled. “Have you caught a mouse?” Because of the way his hands were, I thought he was holding a small creature, and wanted me to come outside to take a look. “No!” He said, “I’ve chopped my thumb off; I need to go to A&E!” There was no visible blood, so I asked if he’d really chopped his thumb off. To which he replied, “Yes, but we need to put the tools away first!” And he walked away, up the garden. Perplexed, I followed him. It’s not that I didn’t believe him, but that is the sort of thing he might say as a joke; I saw no blood, and it did look for all the world as though he was trying to stop a mouse from escaping from his hands. And now, although he’d apparently cut his thumb off, he was firstly wanting all the tools to be collected and put away before we left for the hospital! I grabbed the drill and a hammer and ran down to put them in the garage, then darted back into the house to get the car keys and my coat. Snatching kitchen roll and a small towel I ran to the car, where Dave was waiting, saying calmly: “Don’t panic.”
Don’t panic??? I wasn’t panicking, I had literally jumped out of my skin when he’d hammered on the door! Then I’’d had to process what he’d said about a chopped off thumb and needing to go to A&E, whilst looking at hands devoid of blood that appeared to be holding a mouse, followed by accompanying him to the top of the garden to retrieve tools! My mind was boggling!
As I drove to Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QE), Dave explained that he’d been cutting the very last scaffold board for the final raised bed, when the circular saw he was using, kicked back. It sliced into his right thumb between the nail plate and the joint, nearly completely severing it. At the QE, he was fast-tracked through to ‘urgent care’ (still no visible blood) and told to keep his hand raised. After explaining what he’d done we were shown into a side room, where the waiting nurse had been told that a wound needed cleaning, closing with Steri-Strips, and then bandaging. As Dave removed the kitchen roll he was holding round his thumb, and moved his hand, his thumb sort of flopped open at the cut, and then there was a LOT of blood! The nurse gasped and scurried off to find the doctor. She told us later that she had to go outside for a break and a vape afterwards, and that she needed to practice working on her ‘poker face’!
An x-ray revealed that the saw blade had gone straight through the bone and so reconstructive surgery at Norfolk & Norwich Hospital (N&N) was the next stage. As it was the weekend nothing could be done until the following week. So they bandaged Dave’s thumb, gave him a sling, and home we came. The strangest thing was that Dave had no pain at all. Now, I know he’s been told in the past that he has a high pain threshold, but to feel no pain at all after having partially amputated part of his thumb, was odd!
At N&N, the doctor said that as the bone had been completely shattered it couldn’t be pinned or screwed, so, given these circumstances, he did the best he could. He thoroughly cleaned the wound (flushing out the yellow paint from the saw blade!), removed the thumb nail, sewed Dave’s thumb back together, then plastered and bandaged it, and with an appointment made for the following week, we returned home.
The next few days were interesting, to say the least; Dave could only use his left hand, which was fortunate, as he is left-handed, but even so, he needed a lot of help. It was a bit like having a child in the house again, I had to cut his dinner up and help him with showering and dressing, etc. I even gave him a manicure! When we returned to N&N, the plaster was removed and he was fitted with a bespoke splint, which was much less debilitating than the plaster cast. This meant he was far more able, and he became quite adept at using his middle and fore-finger to pick things up.
Together we would collect the evening’s logs from the log store, carrying the basket back to the house between us, with Dave using his good hand. But with our log burner in daily use the log pile had dwindled significantly, so Dave decided to do some one-handed log splitting one afternoon…. However, when I took him out a cup of tea, I caught him using both hands... Hmmmm! So I did a crash course in log splitting, and found out that I absolutely love it; I’m definitely going to keep it up.
Who needs to go to the gym when one can get great exercise like this?!
We are now five weeks post injury; Dave is doing great and his partially amputated thumb has not given him any pain at all. His third and final visit to N&N was at the end of February; the doctor was very surprised and pleased to see how well and how quickly his thumb is healing. He still has the splint to wear for support if needed, but when at home he leaves it off. And whilst the thumb looks somewhat mangled, at least he still has it and, day by day, sensation is returning. It will take a few weeks to fully heal, possibly up to three months, but it’s well on the way. Dave has to do a bit of physio, holding the base of his thumb still with his other hand, and flexing the top joint to encourage movement. He was also told to moisturise it daily. and I remembered that I still have some sachets of Manuka honey barrier cream that I was given when I had radiotherapy, so he’s using that. It’s excellent stuff, and naturally antibacterial.
And so, back to the new raised beds. From the photos below you can see that the last one is waiting to be assembled, but as work on it ceased when Dave had his accident, we now need to play ‘catch-up’! The last bed needs to be completed, and rotted horse manure mixed into the soil in all the beds as soon as possible. Dave has sown leeks, cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts, and tomatoes (although the latter will be grown in the greenhouse) and these are all sitting on the conservatory windowsill, begging for some warmth, but with the amount of rain we’ve been having they haven’t seen much sunshine yet. Undeterred, though, they have pushed their little green heads through the soil and are coming along a treat.
Raised veggie beds, constructed with treated reject scaffold boards.
Well, that, in a nutshell, is the tale of the raised beds. I hope it’s given you a bit of a chuckle. Onwards and upwards! I’ll be back soon, but hopefully not with a saga about partial amputations!