Breakin' My Back...Yard

I'm a real homeowner now. After being married for eleven years, living in our second home, and living in our second home now for over two years - I worked in the yard. I mean I've mowed grass and pulled weeds, but I've never gotten down and dirty...until today. Yes, I excavated the earth, I subdued the soil, I tamed terra-firma. I am a man. Well, at least I started excavating, subduing, and taming - I still have a long way to go.

I'm finally getting around to landscaping the backyard. We've always wanted it done, but it's always seemed like the money needed to be used elsewhere. So with a portion of our tax return, I promised Jenna we would have the sprinklers and lawn in by the time Claire gets baptized - that gives me just under six weeks left. I can do this. We started by getting a quote from a landscaper, curious as to how much it would take to just get 'er done in one day. $4,000?! Um, yeah - I have to do this.

For some reason, I've had this mental block about installing a sprinkler system. Everytime I start reading all the 'How To' websites, I get overwhelmed and suddenly it becomes the most complicated thing in the world, and I go into screensaver mode. Turns out it's not so complicated, thanks to some help from a friend who came by and pointed out the things I needed to do to get started. I was reading all the 'How To' sites wrong - they were all geared to starting from scratch, so all the talk about back-flow converters, anti-siphon valves, filters, and pressure regulators was moot! I don't have to do all that - it's already there! Duh! So today I just started digging. I found the main sprinkler line to tap into and just kept trenching. I trenched all the way to entrance into our backyard. Apparently, the builder installed the main line to the backyard. Hey that's nice, but it would have been nicer if you had told me! I still have not found the end of it. Maybe I'll just keep trenching. But oh, are my hands, feet, and back sore. But it's a good sore. I'm starting to feel the sense of accomplishment.

So here are the before pictures of our white trash backyard. We plan on having a garden in the back corner there. Notice the curbing outlining where the lawn will be. Yeah, that was installed a year ago. We're movers and shakers that's for sure.



And here's a picture of the sideyard where all the work was done. This was taken during the afternoon break when I had no shade. Later in the day, I trenched all the way to the backyard entrance. Rafe and Claire in the background. It was funny, all the kids had to be out there with me doing their "part", especially Rafe who thought helping dad was the coolest. I didn't mind, even though his "part" was mostly knocking dirt back in the trench. At least the kids saw that daddy actually does do manual labor.

So this week's goals are to finish trenching until I find where the main ends so I can tie into it and set my valves for the back yard. Tee off the front drip line and lay the drip line to the backyard. I also need to finalize where I'm going to trench for the spinklers to the lawn and to the garden. I will also look into hiring a trencher, because it literally is back breaking work. The money spent will be worth it. I'll keep you posted.