Andy and Teresa: Backyard Overhaul

I've got some serious catching up to do, and will start with a little update from home.

We had been discussing the future of our dandelion patch (the lawn behind the shop under some of the fruit trees) for some time and decided that it needed either some weed-b-gone and re-seeding or something else along those lines. Then, there was talk of adding on to the shop in that direction, so maybe not doing anything with it. And then, there was the realization that we wouldn't be adding on anytime soon, and the more likely happening would be the "parts pile" gradually spreading out into the dandelion patch. So, we figured up the area and decided to rent a sod cutter and just start over with dirt.

Andy ran the machine and Beth and I followed behind, making rolls. As we were rolling up the sod and figuring how to coordinate hauling it in to the yard waste place and dropping off the sod cutter to stop the per-hour charge, the neighbors wandered over. Turns out they had a friend who needed some sod and then they wanted the not-so-nice rolls to use as backfill behind their retaining wall. So, instead of making multiple trips into town, we gave it all away!

Then, we laid felt down as a weed barrier. Don got it to us in wads of the heavy stuff, and I bet it would have been quite amusing to see us wrestling it into place.

Next came the gravel. We were convinced that the delivery truck would not be able to make it thru to the back yard, so we used a handy dandy tool (heisted from Don) to pick up 1/2 yard at a time in our truck. This picture shows how far we got doing that before realizing we needed to just order it delivered and hope the truck fit (the piles you see are all from that delivery truck. The spread stuff is 4 loads in our pickup.