Diary of Our Back Yard
July/Aug, 2007... and beyond!
With .55 acres of land, you would think we would have a great place for the kids to play. But with the woods and brush and a very steep incline, the back yard was the last place kids would want to play... but not for long...
click on any picture "thumbnail" to see a larger image
| Before all the fun started - here's what it looked like in May when we were asking for quotes from land$caper$... |
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looking down from the 2nd floor |
| The summer is flying by. There's an unassembled swingset in the 3rd garage. There's a sign up the road at a construction site for "free dirt" and Home Depot is having a lumber sale. So what's left to do?!?!? DIG!!! (Day 1) |
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...and dig... and dig... |
Justin and Ian down in the trenches |
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Darren is fearless with the green machine |
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the first truckload of gravel |
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this stuff is heavy |
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water boy |
lovely princess assistants |
Alex doesn't mind getting a little dirty |
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| Day 3 - it's moving along, but very slowly. The dirt is coming on Saturday. Will we be ready!? |
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metal+metal=sparks
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| Day 5 - still slow, but we're trying. More help is on the way. |
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John and Eric's cool guy hat show - Eric swears the towel-hat really is "cool" |
Eric's got the "swing" of it |
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view from the ground - L |
view from the ground - R |
this is going to be a big backyard! |
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| Day 6 - More of the same - lots more! |
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is Jim running away? can you blame him? |
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Rick-falling asleep on the job? |
| Day 7 - Lots more wall to build. The gravel truck broke down, so no more gravel for the weekend - that will make packing dirt difficult. But the equipment is here. Time to learn how to use it! |
is that a towel on your head? |
driving lessons |
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| Day 8 - DIRT DAY! Ready or not, here comes the dirt - 6 truckloads. Oh, and by the way, it's the hottest day in weeks - humid, too... perfect for this very "ripe", very "natural" soil. Although we really didn't want the typical chunky red clay, this dirt really smells. Hopefully it will grow some nice, thick green grass for us! |
dirt's coming at us one load per hour! |
Jim is "SPEED" (Lightning McBridges) moving dirt to the back as fast as he can. |
Barrett's packing it down |
OOOOPS!!! |
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minor detail - the wall still needs to be finished |
"dirty" work |
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leaving room for more gravel |
that means we've got to work next weekend, too? |
here comes more dirt! |
will this day ever end? |
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Kevin's shoe repair - tape??? |
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look-out below! |
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| Day 9 - did we mention the recent neighborhood car break-ins? We were thinking Eric's wallet must have fallen out of his pocket in Darren's work truck... the unlocked one. So we cancelled all his credit cards and notified the police. Well, we were right about the wallet falling out of his pocket... but late Sun night we found it in the door of the truck. |
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surprised they didn't think Eric was the criminal |
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| ...and we thought we were going to be finished with the dirt part of this project by the end of the weekend... |
as long as there's dirt, Sunday is NOT a "day of rest" |
thanks, Phil! |
so much dirt... |
...so much wall |
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did we mention it was steep back there? |
showing our back side |
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Days 10-13 - It's HOT. Temps hover at 100+ degrees and with no gravel, there's not much we can do but wait. One last board to finish the wall, so Katie and Will volunteer to help Eric. We're counting on the weekend to bring more gravel, equipment, and hopefully some cooler temps. |
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| Day 14 - We broke another high temperature record (104), but it's the weekend and there's still work to be done. The gravel came... but it wasn't enough. Who would imagine that it would take so much dirt and rock to fill this area? And the price tag keeps growing, too! Hope we can find some available resources (dirt and/or gravel) in the morning... |
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Katie and Will watch Daddy from the cooler, cleaner air inside the house |
It's getting flatter back there... |
... but there's just not enough dirt to fill the space! |
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| Day 15 - Nothing but luck - the "free" dirt was still available and the truck driver brought us 3 more loads! For those of you who are counting, that makes 9 truckloads of dirt to fill our back yard! I'll get a count on how many TONS of gravel are back there, too. |
Dirt's here! |
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We're back in business... |
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Ryan, how did we get ourselves into this mess? |
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Looking pretty good |
The back yard actually looks better than the front! |
...or the street! |
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| Day 16 - No real progress except for some front yard cleaning (and there's still a lot more to do!). The green machine needed gas and Katie and Will wanted a chance to sit on the big toy that's spent 2+ weekends at our house. |
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| Day 27 - FINALLY... RAIN!!! So, Eric's back at school and a lot is going on. We've tried to repair the front yard a bit, but with 2 weeks of record-breaking high temps, there's not a lot of motivation to be outside working. This morning's rain was a big help for the yard and the still dusty street in front! |
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mud bath anyone? |
close-up |
The rain has really packed down the dirt - looks like we could've almost used 10 truckloads... but I don't think we're going to attempt that! |
| MONTH 3 - Why count days or weeks when we're taking months? Eric's making progress on the fence, but with a severe drought, attempting to plant grass seems a bit pointless. |
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| The drought continues to worsen and tighter restrictions on outdoor residential watering have been put into place. Who needs grass anyway? |
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March, 2008 Spring Break Although we're still not allowed to water, rain IS coming, so lets put down some seed and see what happens... |
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April, 2008 GREEN! It's not perfect, but it's green. Even better, we're expecting more rain this weekend. |
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even the tree survived! |
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| Now, for the fence. It's 6 weeks until Will's birthday. Wonder if we'll be ready for a backyard party!?!? |
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| April 27: 5 weeks until the party... and we're going to loose a weekend (if not more) for our quick Disney trip. |
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| May 10: It's 3 weeks until Will's party. The fence is finally done, but no gates... or swing set. We'll see how far we can get... |
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This daddy is determined to have a place for his children to play! |
