Back yar......back dirt. :)

Last Spring we had a ward auction. It lasted well into the evening, and although we attended as a family, after about 9:00 I decided I'd take the kids home and put them to bed while Parker stayed at the church to bid on the itmes we still wanted.

About 11:00 PM he comes home and I asked him how much he spent. He hesitated. He then informed me of a service package that had been donated. "8 hours of labor from Clark Construction". He tells me that the bids got REALLY high, and that such a service would be what it takes to get our yard ready to plant. Excited that he'd seen an opportunity to get our back yard done, I didn't complain about the extra cost I hadn't anticipated. I'm sure if we'd hired a professional it would have costed MUCH MUCH more.

Months went by. And I was so hoping that THIS summer I would get to send my children outside to play. Our back yard is FENCED! But it's been nothing but weeds for 2 summers now. Coordinating our schedules was.....difficult. Parker decided to take This Friday (yesterday) off work so we could spend some quality time on the back yard before it gets cold. We'd called Bro. C. several times and left messages that we'd like him to work Friday if he was available.

Yesterday morning came, and we were lazing around the house. Still in our jammies. Then the doorbell rang. When I opened the door, I saw Brother C. standing there. His truck was pulling his bobcat tractor which was parked on the street in front of our house. "Do you guys want me to work today?"
"Really?!! I thought you guys were out of town! Yes we'd LOVE to work on the yard today!"
So I went and told Parker (who was in the shower). He quickly jumped out, dried off, and threw on his work clothes to go help. I was so surprised at how well that Bobcat removed the weeds, and then the dirt!

The problem with our back yard is that since our house was the very FIRST to be built in the neighborhood, the entire yard is sloped and un-even. Honestly I think that the builders were kinda lazy with....MORE than a few things.


Brother C. and his bobcat removed 15 cubic yards of dirt from our back yard. That was 3 dump-trucks FULL! I couldn't believe it! And mostly because looking back there now.....it doesn't look like ther could have been an extra 15 yards of dirt on all that. But now the ground is even. There are only a coupld steps left before we can plant grass. We have to dig around the fence-line since the bobcat can't go RIGHT up next to the fence, we will have to do that by hand. But Parker did a little section while Brother C. went to dump his truck. It won't take long. Then we'll have to borrow Parker's dad's rota-tiller and soften up the ground. Then we'll lay grass seed. We broke some sprinkler lines in the process. Parker will have to fix those as well. But the hard part is done. And I'm so excited.

So now our back yard is no longer weeds. Not quite able to call it a yard yet. It's just all dirt now. But one more step in the direction of having a yard. I'm completely THRILLED!