My Backyard

So, for the last week the decibel level at our house has frazzled my nerves, but the results are worth it. Steve and I bought this house 6.5 years ago...we knew we would have to do some work in the back yard (which is partly why we got the house for the price we did!) And with our nasty June 27 inland "hurricane" it moved up the timeline of some of that work. Steve has major connections with his job, so the incredible guy that we hired is the grandson of someone that Steve worked with and respected. He is teamed up with a guy that works for the city, so we had an engineer work on the landscaping and flow after building a MONSTROUS retaining wall. It is 12 feet by 50 feet...I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on any picture to enlarge it. We had two dump trucks of old concrete from the previous owners removed from the hill (major eye sore!) Each block of the wall weighs 84 lbs and they are filled and back-filled with a gravel/sand mix..then the dirt 4-5 feet back has been tamped with a jack-hammer like device (ok, I should really look up the technical term for that!!) {12:56pm -- Steve informed me that is called a "jumping jack." Thanks Steve.} So...in reality, this wall could probably stand independently in the middle of a field and not fall down!! Outside of making sure the neighbors were satisfied with everything .... things went really well.
Before:



The deer loved the "trees of heaven" we cut down that were now at their level...what a feast. This is a mother and her two males babies that we have been watching since spring...they just lost their spots within the last two weeks.


After:

The top part of the wall slopes back so that all the water run-off from the upper hill will be directed to a gulley for water drainage that we have on the edge of our property. We are to get two days of rain this week...not too much though, no more than an inch and then another day of 1/4 inch and then sun, sun, sun....so we put down an annual/perennial grass mix and hopefully can get some grass growing before it gets cold.

So much fun to dig in the dirt!! Olivia is not excited about grass growing...she is pretending to be the little woodchuck(s) we have living in the back... Now if we can just get Elora to quit EATING it!!!