Landscaping - Part II

We made the decision to sod our back yard after weighing the pros and cons of planting seed and having to keep Trucker off it for a while among other things and decided to make the leap this week. I deluded myself in to thinking that Mike and Lou would have all the rock removed while I was at work on Monday... but not exactly. As a refresher, this is what the back yard looked like when we bought the house.

Please take note of the fence separating the yard in half, the 2x4s surrounding the yard, the lack of grass - and something you can't really see, all the rocks! In case I hadn't mentioned it before, the previous owners LOVED rocks and concrete and all things non-living.

Between when we bought the house and started the sod project a few days ago, we did a lot of pulling up of 2x4s, tearing down the middle fence, de-weeding the entire back yard, attempting to remove some of the rocks (without much luck) and odds and ends when it came to landscaping. If I had been here on Monday we would have gotten a better "Before" picture, but alas, when I asked Mike if he took a "Before" picture he said "Of course!" and this is what it was:

So basically, you can tell that Mike was very excited about the Bobcat he got to drive (as did I, actually - but I didn't do any bulldozing with it). It was fun driving it but I'm kind of glad I chose not to do any actual labor with it and simply moved it to the truck.

Trucker still hasn't figured out that he won't be allowed in the back yard for another 6 weeks, and it's a little different for us to be up early enough to walk the dog before work and what not since we are used to letting him go out in the yard. Here is a picture of Trucker enjoying the last days of playing in the dirt. Note all the rocks still left on Tuesday morning (after Mike and Lou had spent 8 or so hours the day before removing rocks already).

Mike put together a master plan over a year ago, well before our wedding (we had the rehearsal dinner in the backyard so that was his original goal). It involved some incredible landscaping and eventually we would have taken out the sidewalk and replaced it with stepping stones to get to the garage, but that portion of the plan ended up being put on hold... until the Bobcat decided otherwise.

By the end of the demo portion of the day #2 we ended up with a rock pile almost as big as Mike's truck (after a total of 4.5 tons of rock and dirt had been taken to the dumpster the day before). We haven't figured out how to get rid of this pile so it is still sitting on the concrete pad in the back.

Also, Mike really wanted me to put up a picture of what his truck looked like with the whole Bobcat rig as he was returning it the next day - so here we go:

I got to be the one to go back and forth to the turf farm. The first load I brought 1 pallet. Me the the man at the turf farm were trying to figure out if Mike's truck could handle 2 pallets and in our mixed language communication, we both decided it would.

It was an overall exhausting day. Mike and I were working at 8:30 and Lou came to join us about 1:00. We worked until almost 7:00 that night and Mike laid the last few pieces the next morning. I don't have a full yard picture yet but this is the best idea of what it looks like now:

***In more landscaping fun, someone decided today (or maybe yesterday, Mike's not exactly sure) to come steal one of our juniper trees from us. Seriously! We had 3 junipers planted next to the alley by our driveway and now there are only 2! I am absolutely speechless! Who would want to come dig up a tree? And how do you do that without being caught??