Much much ~ma for your brother, you and your family, Amyth.
meara, what Sparky said.
Smonster, you can cup some hydrogen peroxide on it. If it's not entirely closed, the hp will find its way in there to clean out. Otherwise, I guess leave it alone. I hope your tetanus ends up being up-to-date.
Tired tired tahrd. And not through yet. This am my dad helped me transfer soil from one bed (where it was overpiled) to the other. Then split the manure bags up to spread equally in the beds. Once we got an equal-ish amount in both, I could see how much more soil I needed. Wasn't going back to the construction site. The soil needs more organic matter anyway. Cooled my impatient heels for a couple of hours because my mom had had a late night and hadn't woken up yet. Dad and I needed her permission to use her car to haul that stuff in. Finally at a bit past 2pm, we got the go ahead but were told to rush.
Raced over to Home Despot, picked up 12 bags of steer manure. My dad put that in and it helped but I still needed something like 4" of soil height. Going to get more soon. And somehow figure out a way to get it on there myself, even if I have to do it teaspoon by teaspoon. My dad is exhausted from the day and isn't up to any more. I'm impatient because I've been living here since July with no gardening opportunities and was living in my old house in Berkeley with no ability to garden for a whole year before that due to having the house on the market and the landscaping having to adhere to a realtor scheme. My family situation has been so stressful that I need to garden very badly as a way to decompress. So I'm driven.