Unexpected weather

These last few days have brought fantastic weather. The entire area where we will plant grass has been tilled once and I plan to turn it over one more time today. Enjoy the picture below, it may be the only time you see anything like it. That tiller is a beast. There may or may not have been an event where it took off dragging me behind it but I'll never tell. I am thinking my husband not having a blog is a good thing.

Truth be told. It is really hard for Steve to watch all of us work on the yard this year. He loves doing these kinds of projects. Yesterday while he was at work, the kids and I spread two more yards of gravel for the picnic table area.

We also hope to move the hot tub off of the deck down under the window on the right. There is a hardworking young man in that picture. I have really great kids if I haven't mentioned it before.


We planted the strawberry crowns just under the dirt on Saturday afternoon. By Monday afternoon this is what a lot of them look like. It was a nice surprise to see them so happy already. Below you will find a picture of part of our backyard when we purchased our house. Nice, eh? The following pictures are really for my benefit more than anyone else's. It's what keep me going when I think I might collapse from all the tilling.



See that nice brown/yellow color and the old brown windows? The scrap wood in the yard is a nice touch also. It's what drew us to the place, ha! Really we saw a lot of potential in the place.

Here is where we are now. A few less trees and a lot more gravel. But don't we think we don't like grass. It's coming. (Please forgive the photography, the sun was competing with me this morning.)

If you look below you will see some of the tilled up area (getting prepared for grass) with the play structure area to the left. We are using cherry ties to outline the area which are loosely laying around over there. Then the area under the play structure will be filled with cedar chips.

When my energy starts to wane, my vision fails and it feels like we aren't getting anywhere, it helps to look at the before and afters to gain some perspective. It's been three years this month since we purchased this property and we may actually have a really fun backyard this year. We could have paid to have it done the first year but why spend that much? Also, I think there is something to be said for the memories that are made by doing it together as a family.