Tilling the Earth

Here is what we have been up to lately . . .

This is what the yard looked like when we moved into our home back in August. What you cannot see is that there is about a foot of leaves all over the ground. The old owners used the whole yard as compost. Yuck! They did great work on the inside of the house, but the outside, well, it was very neglected! We love the house, and the location, and we knew the yard was going to take some work . . . it has definitely been "some" work!!!!
We have trimmed the trees like crazy! We are trying to help them heal and grow strong again! I used a chain-saw for the first time in my life. See that big branch . . . I cut that while Charles was using a broom to catch the huge thing, and gently (ha) help it fall to the ground. We only damaged our gutter, just a touch. :-) We have to trim it down more . . . bring on the chain-saw! We had to dig out some old trees. It took FOREVER to get the trunks out! Charles did good work!
They used this as the "garden" it had mostly onions in it. I want a garden, but not like this! I heaved all the cinder blocks to the side of the house, where they will be used for a dug-in border around the house. I got my squat-work in that day! I moved over a hundred of them, Charles moved the same from the side of the house . . . HEAVE!! "Bend your knees, not your back... bend your knees, not your back!" I had to keep repeating that, over and over!

We have filled and removed over 300 black garbage bags of debris since we have moved in. Lots of dead leaves, weeds, twigs, branches, etc, etc. It has been insane! The dump has been our friend!
-
We had a nice man offer his trailer and free topsoil to us! (We will make it worth his while!) Charles and I shoveled topsoil for 3 days, one wheel barrel at a time. :-) Dirty work!
We then used the trailer to fill it with junk to haul away . . .
Charles is digging a ditch around the house, where the cinder blocks will create a little barrier.So for now, we have removed all the junk in the yard (it has taken months, and many Saturdays). We now have the topsoil down, and mostly spread out. We are planning on prepping it, and getting ready to plant our grass seed this Saturday. It is suppose to be a nice shade grass (we have BIG trees!). I will keep posting the progress as it happens!! :-) No more exposed tree roots!
We should have grass for the summer! Tiki-Lamps and lemonade -- here we come! :-)