CRAZY YARD WORK

We have already done 2 major projects in the yard since moving in. The first one was removing the horrible prickly juniper bushes in the front yard. I hated them. They may add some green when looking at the yard from a distance, but in reality, all they do is house spiders/webs, critters, bugs, and leaves. And you can't walk on them, so they limit mobility around the front walk way. There are also a bunch of spindly bushes right next to them that look horrible. So I did what any sane person would do - I went out and pulled/cut every single one of them up. Took me several days. But they are now GONE! Hooray! (All the short green bushes in the lawn in front of the house, and all the tall bushes by the tree on the left side.)

The second project was in the backyard (we didn't actually do this one until April, but since I am still catching up on this blog, I am writing about it in this post). In our lovely, large backyard, there is a large dip in the lawn. We have reason to believe the septic tank is buried there. But every time it rains a lot, all the water from our front and back yard drains down into that spot. So we decided to fill it up. And since I really wanted a garden, we decided to dig out a spot for the garden and transfer the sod/grass to fill up the hole. I found the perfect spot to dig in the back by the fence that gets the most sun throughout the day. But it was tough! We did it with shovels and a wagon! What on earth were we thinking?! We transferred 450 square feet of sod! (Actually, Kellen was only able to move 80 square feet of it. I did the rest by myself because he was so busy with other things.) And guess what? After we were mostly done, we learned that you can rent a sod cutter to do the work for you...! Well, it was good exercise, and a good excuse to be outside. And now I have my garden plot started! Now I just have to rent a tiller - the ground is very packed underneath all that grass, and doing that by hand will be very difficult...

But the hole that got the sod transfer? It rained like crazy right after we finished moving all the sod/dirt, and we were smart enough to rent a sod smasher thing - Kellen was able to smash it all down, then he added some grass seed. Now, there is still a small dip in the grass, but you can barely tell, unlike before. Up next: all the leaves that have piled up over the YEARS need to go. That will be fun I'm sure. Here's to owning a home...!