Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Rain, Rain, I Don't Know How Long You'll Be Here, But You're Making Yard Improving Difficult

While the rest of the country has been experiencing a SUPER hot summer, we here in the Pacific Northwest have yet to really experience summer. Yesterday it rained almost an inch and was about 60 degrees or so at our house. Not that I'm complaining, really. It's just that we have a big old project going on outside our front door and I would like it to be done this year. You know, before the BIG rains come.

For those of you who have never been to our house, we have a weird front yard. It is surrounded by steep planting beds. What is that? You don't quite understand, well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words....
That is what we look at out our front window. When we moved in, there was ground cover on the slope but it wasn't strong enough to fight off the weeds so we had ground cover with weeds coming through it. So we took out the ground cover and tried to plant some plants. Nothing has ever done well there. It's just too steep. A couple of years ago I said that we might need to terrace it, but neither of us really wanted to, so we conveniently forgot about it. This year though, we both had had enough so we dug up the plants that were eeking out their living on the hill and Brent started to dig...and dig...and dig. Really, here is the HUGE pile of soil to prove it!

That pile is probably 4 feet tall by 6 feet wide. And most of it is going it the backyard to make a slope, but that's a different post.

But, this weekend, amid Ashley making Brent take her to see the new Harry Potter - I cried - he moved around a thousand pounds of rock to begin the first retaining wall. It looks so good! See...

He still has three more rows to put up then it will be a three foot tall retaining wall.

So, once he's done, then I get to plant some stuff that should live. I'm so excited!

If the rain ever calms down for a few days, he might be able to get more done. But, next week is Girl's Camp - yep, still going this year - so he should get sufficiently bored to work some more on the great wall that is going up in our front yard, provided it stops raining for a few days!

5 comments:

Jess said...

WOW.. that will look awesome. Big project but it will be totally worth it.

Love ya!

Mom said...

Ok...I can finally figure out what you were talking about. It is a BIG project. Good luck to you. Wish it would stop raining for a minute! maybe we will bring the sun when we come (although it is "monsoon" time here, so we aren't seeing a LOT of it...just enough sun to make it how and just enough rain to make it MUGGY - you know the kind of weather where you feel like you are in a sauna or steam room!! We won't bring that :) - good job Brent!!! Haven't seen Harry Potter yet - hopefully this weekend!!
Love you!

Kathy said...

Yard work is such a big and hard job but you will both feel such a great sense of accomplishment every time you look at your finished project. Opps, projects are never done!

Chelsea said...

Pretty cool! Looks like he's doing a great job so far. Should be beautiful when you guys are done!

Courtney said...

You are so good to actually take pictures of your project. I always forget until it is finished and then wish I had "before"s and "after"s.