Dear Dirt: I'm done!

I think our yard is going to do me in. I'm almost to the point where I don't even care any more. Just bring in the grass and be done with it!!!

We brought in 8 loads of fill dirt last week and Patrick borrowed a tractor and spent every waking minute spreading it.  By Saturday he was nearly done but was concerned about the slight hills and humps in the backyard (and front yard too for that matter). From my window vantage point I thought it looked great. And then last night we went out and raked it and leveled it--and I realized he was right. After an hour out there I was beyond frustrated and so grateful for all of Patrick's hard work. And yet, even though we keep thinking our yard is getting closer and closer to being done, it just keeps getting harder and harder with more and more curve balls thrown at us left and right. (Like how the fill dirt is mostly clay and is now packed down in bumpy hills and utterly impossible to rake. And how we have waited for a month to get this fill dirt. And how the fence guy fell through and was supposed to be here yesterday but he pushed it back a week. And with the way our luck has been, it will be pushed back even longer than that.) Who knows if our sprinkler pipes are still in tact after a dump truck ran over a few of them and then Patrick had to drive a tractor all over them last week. Our drain pipe extensions are still just laying there and it's all just so depressing that I'm not sure what to do about it.

Last week I was so excited to go pick out trees and flowers and this week I could care less. I'm sick of the whole thing and wish I could just lay down a whole bunch of fake turf and call it good! Of course I'm not serious (not really at least), but I just had to complain and vent and record my feelings so someday when I look at our *hopefully* beautiful yard, I will remember all of the blood and sweat and tears that went into creating it.

I've decided it's not going to be perfect--ever--but we've done our best and broke the piggy bank in doing it.  And if we EVER move again, I am saving up enough money to hire someone to do the yard for me because I absolutely REFUSE to ever do it again!!!!

Now if we can just be spared too many sprinkler pipe repairs.....

A Grueling Saturday.

I dreaded this day for a long time.  And before I was ready, it was upon us.

And we spent all day from early morning till evening, trenching with Dad on the big Diesel DitchWitch, and Patrick on the Mini-Excavator (and me and Mom as navigators).

{I also got to ride with Patrick a lot...}

We began our yard expedition with a Mt. Everest of ugly dirt and 60 million dirt clods, rocks the size of softballs, and boulders the size of small station wagons.

We raked and hauled and moved and cried and Phase 1 was complete by the beginning of July.

Then we had to make 3 substantial retaining walls (with many of our newfound rocks).  That wasn't fun.

Now we have close to 2 dozen stations, many manifolds, what seems like a thousand trenches, and a garage packed full of sprinkler supplies.

Everyone keeps saying it will be worth it when it's all done.  And all I can think of is how many more backbreaking days it will be till what they say proves true.

Because our yard has never ceased to overwhelm me.  Me, who was always been such an indoor, read-a-book type of girl.

But I think that all of this work only leaves me with a completely new paradigm shift.  When, IF we ever get this yard to actually look like a yard and not a chalky, rock graveyard, I will expand my horizons.  I will gladly go out and plant and weed and garden and harvest.

You see, after all of this overwhelmingly intenseness is over, yard "work" won't really seem like work at all.

It will be beauty.  And faith-building, and glorious.

I think perhaps I'll become an outside girl after all....