After a few weather delays last week, today a new crew from our landscaper (Christy Webber) showed up as we were leaving for work. They had a lot of soil with them, along with a Bobcat – and this is what we found on returning home.
Waking up this morning, we saw that the heavy, overnight rains ended up leaving a fairly large puddle in the middle of our yard. We’d seen some pooling here after we first started to water the yard… but last night’s rain made things much more pronounced.
It’s super early, and though I’m tired – it’s nice to have something that forces me out of bed. I haven’t been able to resume my habit of getting up to work in the early hours, so maybe the new watering routine will shift my schedule up some. There’s a bit of rain in the forecast, but I expect to be doing this early rising for the next two weeks at least.
This is a rather big file (2.2MB), but does show the whole progress of our backyard: from the clearing to the leveling to the sod installation. The first few photos are a little off, but I did try to take photos from the same vantage point during the sod install part.
It’s been a long two days of work, and a remarkable four days of change. Considering how things looked Thursday, it’s hard to believe. I think we’re lucky to have this bench, because for the foreseeable future… every time I get back here, I’m going to be blown away. And will need to sit down, to marvel at it all.
Unfortunately, the forklift was bigger than a bobcat… and couldn’t make it down the driveway. So he left all four palettes of our sod near the front. We kind of knew this might happen, so it just means more transport and moving around for us.
Today was a little more subdued. Though the bobcat came back for more clearing, there were only two workers (as opposed to the five we had yesterday).
As Liz and I were watching, we kept shaking our heads – remembering how long it took to clear just a little bit ourselves.
Tonight, after work, Liz and I stepped out on the back porch and took one last look at the backyard. It’s a crazy, overgrown mess… but all of that changes, in less than 24 hours.
This is after a few hours. It was slow going, and the concrete actually ran much deeper than I anticipated. There’s actually a layer of brick underneath everything, and I was pulling up chunks that were several inches thick.
Liz did the math for how much mulch we’ll need for the backyard (we’re keeping a 3′ gap between the yard and the fence). All told, we’ll need 22 bags – so we decided to split things up into multiple runs.
Came home to find some small flags, planted in the backyard. We’re going to be having work done next week, and learned that this was part of the process (although I thought it would be JULIE, turns out it was DIGGER – gotta love those acronyms).
Yesterday evening, we got a knock on the door around 7PM. It ended up being Carol Jean, a neighbor of ours from two doors down. She was just stopping by, and chatted with us a bit about our backyard (she had heard we were going to get some work done, and was just curious).
The front yard really is a lovely thing to see. I’d argue it’s the nicest looking plot of lawn on the block, but then… I’m a little biased in this regard. I am still awed when I think about how this all used to look, before Liz and Julie tackled it.
A lovely photo of Liz, with our house in the background. Bit by bit, we’re making things better. I cannot wait until this backyard area is all cleaned up. I’m truly looking forward to inviting folks over to come and hang out. Can’t wait.