Backyard finished

Finally the time is here. After months and months of working sun up to sun down the backyard is finally finished. That last part wasn't true, but it was two days of pretty irritating work, and more tedious than difficult. Making sure all (or at least most) of the rocks were gone was the main job of it. But yesterday I finally finished that last portion, cleaned it up, planted, fertilized and watered. The only downfall is now we have to take Cody out on a leash again because his runner goes right over the newly planted area and this lawn is going to need all the help it can get.

And if look close you can see my DirecTV cable on the ground.

That being said, I am being met with some confusion when I mention the DirecTV incident. Well here is the story.

I was sitting on the toilet one morning reading my book. It was semi-windy outside but nothing too crazy. Now for those of you who don't know our backyard is completely surrounded by trees, both on the side of the yard and looming over the yard. So anyway, I'm sitting there and it's a pretty tense part of the book, so I'm kind of on edge, when I hear this really loud crash from right outside the bathroom window. Needless to say it scared the crap out of me.... So I look out the window to see this huge branch a little bit wider than my thigh and about 15 feet long in a couple of pieces all across the middle part of the yard. The branch was really dry and dead looking so it must have broken up when it fell.

I go outside to see if it had done anything, not really feeling safe in the house anymore, if there are falling trees I wanted to see them coming. My first thought was that it was a bummer that it had fallen on top of the microwave that was sitting in the middle of the yard. (Sidebar: This was a microwave that was given to us by my parents but we didn't end up using it. So naturally we brought it outside and plugged it in and put all kinds of different things in it to see what it would do. Pretty much every little kids dream. Light bulbs are the best we found by the way, I highly recommend it.

But then, to my even greater dismay, I see that the branch had taken down my DirecTV cable that runs from my house to a tree in the backyard. As the ground was frozen when I had the dish installed we couldn't very well bury the thing. One can imagine how I regret not doing that now. So the branch had fallen pretty much directly on it and ripped down the cable and took down the panel of siding that the cable was attached to. So I rush inside to assess the damage, and lo and behold, when I flip on the TV....nothing. Back outside everything was still connected where it was supposed to be on the dish, it must have just been knocked out of alignment.

There is more to this story but this is a long enough post already so I'll let you go now.

Backyard again...

So yesterday I continued my get-work-done-that-should-have-been-done-months-ago week and got cracking on the backyard. I started on the far end where the shed used to be because it was easier and I didn't want to get myself discouraged too soon into my new found motivational self. Only problem was that side of the yard, while mostly devoid of any rocks, is infested with roots. It wasn't so bad because they were tiny little ones that broke after a little bit of tugging. But almost every time I moved the rake it would catch on a little root, irritating.

Before picture: If you look really close you can see
a pile of sticks and stuff in the way back.

Well, I was only about 5 minutes into the project when I decided I was just going to do this half of the yard today. This way I could get it completely done and have at least some of the yard looking decent if and when my motivation for this little adventure wore off. So I used my fallen DirecTV as a divider line (got to use it for something) and did a little over half of the yard. I also decided that I wasn't going to worry about the hill either, I could put mulch on there in the spring or something. Now, most likely that won't happen, but it makes me feel better for now.

I started with all the debris that has accumulated over the summer, fallen branches and such. put that into two full garbage bags and hauled them out to the trash. Next came the time consuming part, the raking. I don't have enough funds for top soil so I am forced to do the best with what I got. The soil itself doesn't look that bad to me (and my professional eye) where there is any soil not obscured by rocks. I dug up the grass seed and fertilizer that has been sitting under my porch since I bought them back in April. Ideally you are supposed to have a spreader that does this for you, but, again, funds being limited I was forced to do it the biblical way, with my hands. I thought it came out alright, so I did the same with the fertilizer. Then I just sprayed some water on it, and on myself but that was unintentional.

This is the after believe it or not. The foreground is the part
I didn't do, the background is the part I did.

Now I'm feeling really good about getting the next installment done today, or at least making a good dent in it. Though when I woke up this morning my back was really hurting so I may just use that as an excuse to read Wheel of Time all day.