Backyard Update

I have anxiously been waiting for today to continue our work in the backyard. However, today turned into a much larger work day than I anticipated.

My wonderful activity day girls had helped with the finishing touches on clearing the last few straggler rocks off of the dirt on Thursday. They were so meticulous, even digging out some of the rock the rain had embedded into the dirt. What sweet girls they are!

Friday evening, I spent some time evening out the dirt and then Allen and I put three layers of weed blocking fabric down with fingers crossed that we will have many years weed free. The area is now all prepped and ready for the rock.

Today, we got outside at about 8:30a.m. and started our daunting task of moving the dirt-filled pile of rock onto the weed blocking fabric. Unfortunately, there was a TON of dirt and debris mixed into the pile, which added to the work load. It didn't take Allen and I very long to feel that this was a nearly impossible job that will take us many weekends to take care of, when my parents showed up willing to work. (I must say that I have the most amazing parents in the world! I am so blest to have them so close and that Allen and I both have a great relationship with them.)

We tried many different ways of cleaning the rock before we came up with a system. The final one that seemed to be the most efficient was my dad shoveling the rock off of the pile onto the sidewalk, my mom then raked the rock around while I blew it with the leaf blower, then Allen would rake the cleaned rock onto the lid of one of our plastic storage buckets, and finally...Allen was able to heft the rock and dump it onto the fabric. As you can see, it was pretty tedious and tiring, but the end result looks great and I feel great after a long productive day of work!

We worked with my parents this way until about 1:30 when we all needed a break. We had a very fancy lunch of bagels and grapes and enjoyed visiting together out on the back porch. My parents then left and it was time to get back to work. It was at this point that I was really missing my very strong, fit, 13 year old son who was camping in the snow with his scout troop. Kelsey had Amelia spend the night and conveniently avoided the backyard, knowing there was much too dirty work for her taste going on. Jayden was a trooper and would come help for a half hour at a time. Which reminds me....

Jayden was playing handball on the side of our garage while we were working. I am really glad he was, because he alerted us to the fact that some woman had wondered into our garage thinking we were having a garage sale. Pretty random since my car was parked in the driveway and we didn't have any signs up or people sitting in the garage. It was odd, but luckily Jayden noticed her before she stole something out of the garage. She was in there rummaging around... weird!

Anyway, we were blessed by another straggler coming by. This time it was my neighbor, Al, coming to see what we were up to and he decided to stay a while and help sift the rock. (At this point, there was so much dirt in the rock we were shoveling the rock onto a metal grate, moving it around to let the dirt fall through, then transferring it onto the sidewalk.) We finally finished the pile about 5 p.m. and Allen and I were spent!

Now, I can't wait to get the new trampoline set up and ready to go. The boxes have been in my dining room near the back door. It will be so nice to have them out of my way, while giving my kids a place to get out their excess energy. I am very excited!