SIDE PORCH SLATE

Today Tommy and I worked on the slate on the side porch. We need to get it finished before it is too cold to do that type of work outside. So we used all the tile we had cut up already but we ran out. Tommy cut whatever we had left that was sealed and I opened a few more boxes and sealed them before he cut them. We managed to get all the tile laid today except that we didn't do any of the cutting along the edges. We will wait till it is good to walk on and then we will do those pieces.

Meanwhile, Tom's parents were outside today working on the front yard. First they mixed some concrete to put against the pavers (it will be hidden with dirt). Then Tom's dad made a path to the other side of the property and dug up some topsoil. He dumped it along the walkway and Tom's mom spread it all out. There is still a little more to do but it is turning out great!

I couldn't get any good pictures of the walkway because it is still covered in sand...

HOT HOT HOT

Today was an extremely hot day. Tom's mom stayed the night last night and woke up before us. She started early in the morning working on raking and picking rocks out of the backyard. Eventually Tom, Hooper and I woke up and joined her... BUT we wished that we had gotten up earlier because it was really really HOT today. We raked the entire back yard and put wheel-barrowed the rocks to the back of the property. It took some time because of the heat but we managed to get it done and seeded the lawn before we had enough.

Here are pics of the final grading and seeding in the backyard and the sprinklers set up in the front yard.

SIDE YARD

When we got home from work I quickly went to the vet with Hooper. He had his first visit and come to find out he has pneumonia. The doctor new as soon as he touched under his neck and then he said " Was he one of the puppies from the Tractor Supply adoption?" Of course the answer was yes and apparently all the dogs he has seen as a result of those adoptions had pneumonia. So we left with no additional puppy shots and instead with antibiotics.

Tom's mom had been working on the lawn during the afternoon and Tom and I joined her this evening. We worked on raking the stones and chopping out the roots on the side of the house. Before it got to dark we were able to throw down some grass seed.

YORK RAKE

Tom worked in the backyard today with the york rake. Using it to get all of the rocks out and tear up some more of the roots.

Me and Hooper weeded some of the plant bed along the driveway. We need to get some mulch on there so it stops growing weeds!

DIRT and DOORS

tom's mom suprised us and spent the day here finishing up the front yard. She ended up with a huge pile of rocks in the front yard, but unfortunately by the time we got home from work the thunderstorms had rolled through twice already so the yard was too muddy to through down any seed.

Instead Tommy and I came inside and put the painted doors back on the hinges upstairs and put on the doorknobs.

Hooper had a little lovin' with his Duck...

HARLEY RAKE

Friday I was here with Tom's parents. We loaded the truck with some garbage wood and stumps and dumped that off at the recycling center. Then loaded the unused pavers on the truck and I returned them to Home Depot. And the rest of the day we continued to clean up the yard and his parents shredded some more. When Tommy got home from work he sharpened the stump grinder and ground a few stumps.

Saturday was a short day. Tommy moved some dirt out of the future patio location and I moved some mulch around a few trees. Then we went to a fun BBQ!!!

In general Sunday was the last big push to clean up the yard... grinding stumps, moving dirt, moving mulch, shredding sticks.... Then in the evening Tommy changed the oils in the kubotka.

On Memorial Day we got up early and picked up a few last piles of roots and rocks... Then Tommy's uncle came with the rototiller and helped tommy take the backhoe off the kubotka. Tommy and I took a ride to the rental place and picked up the Harley Rake. Got it back and the guys hooked it up. Then we spend the day with Tommy straining his neck to drive the kubotka around with the harley rake while the rest of us raked and picked up piles of rocks. The Harley rake is pretty decent at removing the rocks and it certainly does a great job of leveling the dirt.
The front yard is pretty rocky soil so it took a good part of the day to get the rocks out and it was HOT!!! The back yard has a lot less rocks but a few more roots so we still have some cleaning up to do there.

These are pictures of the yard before the Harley Rake, I didn't take any at the end of the day.

PEPE 'LIL' PEW

We had some helpers this weekend and got a bit of work done...

Tom's dad worked on putting a hose spigot outside the basement door and he started working on the A/C compressor piping and electric...

Tom's mom planted 300 bare root vinca's on the slope in the front yard. It was quite a bit of work and we didn't have enough...

Pawel came in the afternoon and he cut down some of the rest of the dead and/or ugly trees...

Tommy and I worked on a couple things... We cleaned up the orange and black fencing, dug the sewer stickups out and cut them so they would be underground, spread some mulch, and graded the front yard a bit...

On Saturday night we went to home depot after we got done working and on the way home we pulled into the driveway and there is a little baby skunk!!! Pepe 'Lil' Pew!!! We couldn't get up the driveway for a good 5 minutes because he kept walking back and forth in a zig zag pattern up the driveway... He doesn't quite walk either... he has a chuga chuga cho cho type of walk... one butt cheek up then the other... so funny! What are we going to do with a resident skunk!!!

HARD AT WORK

I am STILL taking a class at Ft. Monmouth so it took me a long time to get to the house tonight so Tommy worked by himself all night. He is working on cleaning up the little odds and ends on the basement side of the house. He ground 3 or 4 stumps that have been in his way over there for quite some time... cleaned up the pallets from the pavers and picked up some of the rocks that have surfaced out of the dirt... And he is grading the dirt on that side to keep his swale going and put dirt up against the pavers...

Our goal this week is to finish this side of the house so we never have to bring the tractor over there again... :)

DIRT, LOGS, and PLANTS

Friday night we worked on the front yard. No more dirt is needed but there was a mound on the right side that we cut a tree down from and then flattened it out a little bit. We also removed another walnut tree that I remeber last year was pretty messy once the walnuts begin falling. And that is that... it looks great...

Saturday we worked on the front yard some more. We pulled strings for the property line and staked out the driveway. Then Tommy took dirt out of the back (near where the driveway pad will be and put it on the left side of the driveway while I raked it into a mound.

We are having someone come with a portable sawmill on Tuesday to cut up the logs (cherry, walnut, and maple) that we are using for the kitchen cabinets. So onSunday Tommy moved the logs to the front yard and put them in piles of what order to have them cut since it is likely that all 50+ of them will not be cut in one day so picking the better ones is necessary. Meanwhile I went to Lowes and got some shrubs to plant on the left side of the driveway. Got some boxwoods and burning bushes. Also dug out some of the other plants and trees we got last year at that auction. Planted all of those and I think it turned out pretty good. Later in the afternoon Tom's parents came down and his mom brought me two pink dogwoods and a white blooming tree. Put the dogwood on the small hill we knocked down on Friday and the other one along the driveway, still need to find a place for the white one.

FRONT YARD GRADING

Friday night we set out to "move" the shed... We were able to movie it about 30 feet and then it started falling apart so we gave up. The walls had shifted about a foot off of the platform, that particle board plywood does not hold at all. So then Tommy flipped it over with the kubotka and it landed on the roof (scary moment because it was rolling towards the house!!!). We knoked it aprart and made piles of 2x4's to keep and plywood to scrap. Tommy told me about 4 times to watch out for nails, but inevitably he is the one that ended up stepping on one... it didin't stop him friday but he didn't wake up today without feeling the pain... So the backyard is starting to look clearer with the shed gone and some of the material we have organized, palletized and moved further back on the property. Saturday morning we first graded the front yeard. We evened out the base dirt and filled in holes and scarped down sope of the crappier dirt. We sculpted and raked the slope so that it looks good. We won't be able to plant grass there because it is a little too steep for mowing so we are thinking about using some fo the round river rocks and pachasandras or low evergreen style plants to cover that area. We shall see... Then tommy started to move topsoil from the backyard, near the deck area, to the front yard. Although it is really really really great topsoil it is pretty full of rocks and sticks so it is too difficult to rake it out and remove ALL those little rocks. The saving grace is going to be the rental of a harley rake. It will attache to the 3 point hitche and removes all the rocks from the soil. When we have the front yard and back yard fully grades we plan to rent that and give it a shot, hope it works! Since it wasn't worth it to try and rake out all the rocks I went inside and painted the second coat on the rest of the wind/door tops.

OUTSIDE!!!

It was such a beautiful day today that we just couldn't bear to work inside afterwork.

We need some topsoil for the front yard and some more dirt to finish the grading. In order to do that we need to take some of the dirt from the backyard. The area in front of the shed needs to be cut out and graded so we spent the evening cleaning out the shed and moving everything to the basement and then we cut up the plywood and scrapwood and piled it up in the family room for some fireplace burning. We have a little bit more to clean up and then we can either MOVE or DESTROY the shed, we haven't decided which yet!