All in a Days Work

Yard work has never been my thing but we had a plan on Sunday.  Scrape the alfalfa, move the dirt pile from the back to the front, and try to level it out.  I estimate we are working with about a half an acre.  I figure the distance from the street to the back of the back yard is almost an acre.  The house is taking up space and there's the areas that are going to be gravel so I, because I totally know what I'm talking about, think that we have about a half acre of yard.  Imagine Mark rolling his eyes when I tell him this, he is fairly confident that I have no idea what I'm talking about.  Oh, well...

We started at 8:00 am, well Mark started at 8:00, I sort of watched and took pictures.  There wasn't a whole lot I could do until he was done scraping.  I'm pretty sure he was having a lot of fun in the skid steer.

Looking the amount of work that had to be done I didn't think there was anyway we were going to get it all done on Sunday.  It only took him a couple of hours to scrape the back yard and fill in the grooves over the drain field (remember how my backyard is a dumping ground?).  From there he was off to move the mound of dirt that was left in our back yard to the front yard to fill in the low spots.  Now, as you know, I've never built a house before but I'm pretty sure that you are not supposed to have a six foot tall, ten foot wide pile of dirt and rocks left over.  I understand that the yard wouldn't have a final grade when all was said and done but it didn't get any grading at all...  But we paid for it, I know we did because it was part of that final itemized list of building costs.  Either way, it doesn't matter now.  We spent the whole day playing in the dirt. I got a nice tan (well, it will be when I'm not so pink) and the yard was finally cleared out.  Leveling will come later this week.  The low spots were filled and we move the Stonehenge rocks, it seems we need about six more to complete the look we're going for.

The Drain Field -Before

The Drain Field-After

Remember the pile of dirt?  Now you see it...

Now you don't.

 Stonehenge

We definitely need way more rocks.

 The front yard-Before (street view)

 The front yard-After (porch view)

My first gardening attempt, not so bad right?  The ones that died are clearly not pictured, not sure what happened to those little guys.  Mark said to take them back to Lowes, apparently they have some sort of guarantee on their plants.  I don't think that it covers inexperienced gardeners like me.

On a different note, we have gotten to know a couple neighbors, the record keeper for the Willard 6th ward, and the Relief Society ladies.  We have had tons of offers to help with our yard, the guy across the street used to do sprinklers and has given Mark a ton of great ideas.  The guy down the street brought over this cool rake thing to hook to the back of the 4 wheeler and the Relief Society brought cookies and a cute Welcome card.  The poor ladies ventured out in the pouring rain so I had to invite them in, which led to an invite to the Tuesday night activity at the church, not sure how I'm going to get out of that one.  Kandis just laughed until I told her if I had to go she was going too, not to worry, neither one of us are going.  I'm pretty sure the church isn't ready for the Gallaghers.  :)

School is out and now we are looking for things to keep Kandis busy this summer.  She's doing good, but too much time alone can only cause Sybil to come to the surface.  Wish me luck, being thirteen really sucks.  I'm beginning to remember how it was to be thirteen, I think maybe I'll cry too.