Landscaping 101

Two weeks ago, we decided to re-do the sprinklers in our front yard. WE put them in last time, and they just slowly have gotten ruined. They weren't buried deep enough so they always got hit by the neighbors cars, or me mowing over them. Our front yard was so dead and run over with dead, pokey weeds that we decided to have our neighbor (different ones) come over and use his mad skills to grade our yard for us. He loves to do this kind of thing, so it was a win/win!

He has this little cart/tractor thing, and he attaches a rolled up chain link fence (he invented.. :) ) and then he put logs on it to make weight, and away he goes making circles around the yard. The kids found the trailer bed very useful for their own ENTERTAINMENT! I think he was going a whole 4 mph. haha

(and that's his mom... adding her extra weight) that was hilarious to watch---the kids really enjoyed that one.

Leuscher kept chasing it around & around barking at it. He looks so viscious in this picture. He does the same thing to the hose out back, and when I vaccum. He tries to attack them.


We found a person off of craigs list to come dig the trench for us for about the same price you could RENT one, but he did all the work. So we were all for that. (the last ones we did, we did by hand/rototiller). He ended up cancelling that satruday morning he was supposed to come, saying he broke it, but would come next week. Kevin didn't go for that. By Monday, he was already taking a pick to the yard. He said it wasn't so bad, the dirt was kinda soft. He figured he'd atleast give the guy a head start.. or ourselves a head start! Because we ended up cancelling the guy & DID IT BY HAND! The rain over the weekend was soooo helpful. I ended up digging quite a few trenches by shovel, while Kevin still used the pick. I meant to take pictures of those, but I was too busy digging them.
This was one of the trenches along the front walk way, that we filled w/ water (before it rained) to soften it some more. Raegan found it helpful to play in the mud. I took alot of those pictures, but you get the idea.. it was really cute.
We also decided to re-do the flower box. We have the gay ol' single layer red brick looking thing that really sucks. So Kevin was ready to "upgrade" to bigger & better. Again, we found someone on craigs list that was selling their block. The good news was they were selling it for less than $1 a block. (over 2 & 3 bucks @ home depot) bad news was they were in GOODYEAR! Anyone out there know where that's at??? Yeah, didn't think so. We loaded up all 3 kids in the car, took about an hour or so to get there..w/ rush hour & construction. Find the house load up the car, it's about 5:30. Kids are starving, we grab Mc'Ds-- we have so much weight in the back of the car, I'm getting ulcers. We have a lift on our car, yet we look like some chollos w/ a bangin' car. (This is draggin on, but I have a funny story about this.. I'll post later) It takes almost an hour & a half to get home. This is what it looked like.

all the block stacked in the back. it was completely full.

notice how close to the ground we are??

And finally---the finished product. Well, minus the yard that we have to regrow! My pretty flower box, and my new sprinkler system complete with timer (sooo worth it already), and new lots of things cause Kevin has mad plumbing skills!