It's Dirty Work & We Have to Do It

We were too deep into our self-isolation whole-yard makeover to turn back now. We'd purposefully killed our front yard, dug up a giant trench, built a tiny retaining wall, and jack hammered out our old walkways. Now that we'd locked in "neighbors of the year", the pressure was on to make the mess and the work pay off.

But before we could get to that end of the rainbow, we were going to have to get dirty. Very, very dirty. Five truckloads-of-dirt-dirty. My level of excitement inversely matched that of my 4 year old son. But my dread at the idea of grading all that dirt was short lived, once I learned that for an additional $75 charge, we could order our dirt to be delivered by Slinger Truck. Besides being entertaining, the Slinger truck, plus its helpful and patient operators, dramatically cut down the manual labor needed to even the grading of our yard.

We hadn't escaped all the back breaking work though. Due to the delay of city approval on our wall, our first truck of dirt for the yard arrived before we were certain we'd even be able to keep the retaining wall. I'd be lying if I tried to claim I wasn't frustrated to have that first Slinger truckload of dirt piled in the yard instead of evenly spread, but at least J was thrilled! And it hasn't been a total waste as we had a new raised garden bed I needed to have filled, and they were able to shoot the base layer (of pulverized topsoil) over our hedges. If we'd known it would work, I would have insisted on ordering our garden super-soil by Slinger truck too! Instead, that came later in the day by dump truck, and R and I again got our workouts in!

We had planned to move our rain gutter drainage pipe further away from the house, and closer to the street at this point. This was the second of two exit points we felt were too close to the house, and we were determined to fix it as we'd similarly fixed the first when we moved in. But R and I were not in agreement as to the perfect exit location. As we discussed options, we first realized we were not going to see eye-to-eye on the pipe, and then concluded that both of our plans were terrible compared to the idea of instead using a rain barrel. I researched options and found one I thought would look best against the house, a major concern since it would be seen from the street. On a whim, before checking out online on my rain barrel purchase, I checked our neighborhood Buy/Sell/Trade and was shocked to see the exact rain barrel I wanted posted for free to anyone who would pick it up. I told R I'd be back in ten minutes and darted out the door, returning victorious, rain barrel in hand (in van is more accurate) and ready to cross its installation, and our rain gutter problem, off of our yard makeover list. Next was pull out the ivy. Yuck.

Eventually, when we knew the wall was allowed to stay, we ordered additional dirt and graded the piles that had been waiting. J was disappointed he could no longer play king of the mountain, but R and I were relieved. Now it was time to seed the yard. This is best done in Ohio in May and October, but due to our delay it was nearly July. And it was hot. If we were going to grow baby grass in July, it was going to take a lot of water and vigilance. And luckily, a 65 gallon rain barrel was going to come in handy!

Growing grass had worked! I was delighted, but also not interested in installing a walkway in 90+ degree weather. So, we again attempted to find help and hire a team. Unfortunately, again we had no luck and ultimately this portion of the project was delayed until the following Spring. I was sure that it would all be worth it when it was done and we got to enjoy our newly revamped front yard. In the meantime, I finished what I could, rearranging the beds around our trees, adding landscape lighting (R's request), adding a strip of gravel in front of the wall (because driving through the grass was evidently still so tempting) and planting the largest white hydrangeas (still teeny babies) I could find on the side of our home. One day, I just knew, they'd be stunning!