Such Perfect Weather!

The weather these past few weeks has been amazing! Kaylee and I have really enjoyed being able to walk with the dogs without dying of heat stroke. I love being able to go to the park with her and not have to worry about the slides being too hot.

Robert and I took advantage of the good weather, and unexpected extra time off :( to work on our front yard.....or lack thereof.

Kaylee looks SO big in this picture! You can also see how packed the ground is where we tore out the raised flower beds.

The front "yard" before:

The existing sprinkler system doesn't work so we needed to dig it up. Robert did a lot of the digging especially by the porch where the controls were. It was a huge hole!

you can see around the middle of the picture where we dug up the sprinkler heads.

The sprinkler system pipes were ridiculous. There were two pipes along side each other going the entire length of the yard! And, to be able to till the yard we needed them to not be there. So we dug them up by hand! it took FOREVER and was incredibly difficult. Our ground is filled with huge rocks and boulders. If you look back to the first picture, the two big rocks are the same size as the ones we were pulling out of the ground not even a foot deep.

The side yard - Before:

^^This is a pile of boulders that surrounded a little tree that was super dead when we moved in.

After all the weeds were killed and mostly scrapped off the dirt. you can also see the trench we dug to get the sprinkler pipe up.

Before and after tilling. It was SO wonderful to see the dirt! I don't know why it was so encouraging, but it was one step closer to having an actual grass yard!

The front yard after tilling:

The next step is to rake the roots out of the dirt. I thought that would be pretty easy.....oh boy was I wrong! The roots are everywhere! We are planning to spray everything that re-grows, maybe re-till before winter, and then spray, till, and plant grass in the spring. I can NOT wait to have a yard! That is the thought that kept me going all 4 days we were digging in the yard. I want GRASS for Kaylee to play on!

I am trying not to think about the back yard. It is depressing that we have to do it all over again, plus pick out all the craziness that is back there, to get grass in the back......

Bones, Rocks, and Rubber bands

This is the state of our back "yard"

It was the dumping ground for the previous owners and construction crew(s). It is going to take a good long while to clean up, but it has been interesting!

It doesn't look so bad from far away.....

...well, except this part, but it is on purpose lol!

A closer look reveals the randomness that is the junk in our yard:

Fish tank rocks.......yes, and not a small number of them! I am waiting to find the fish and tank decorations that go with them.

Bones, and not the good TV show kind! This is just one of several I have found. Luckily they are small enough that I know they can't be human.

Please enlarge these because they are eye opening! And Funny!

There were more "fun" things, but they were more dangerous and had to be immediately picked up. Things like screws, nails, shards of tile, kitchen cabinet hardware, door hinges, whole pens, and several other things.

I am determined to get rid of all of it before we plant grass this fall or next spring. But it is turning out to be quite the job.

My progress so far:

This small square took me a couple of hours.....ugh

The spoils?

Everything except the white and black coiled wire came from that small square.

This project is not fun, or easy, but it will be SO well worth it once it is done!