A Week Of Moving Dirt Begins Today

Today, between 7:45 am and 9:00 am the landscapers will arrive at the house with their large equipment and earth will start to be moved. By the end of the week, luck and weather permitting, I'll have a new patio, a firm base for the shed to be installed in a month, and new water control slopes that will save my soil and the foundation of my house. I'm really excited and plan to try to take photos each day just to get a feel for what's changing.

The old patio, shown here, will be ripped up and tossed out. There's a firm
a few miles away that recycles concrete, so the landscapers will be
delivering the old stones there to be pulverized and mixed into new
clean fill. DH is in the far background of the photo, watering a lilac he
transplanted from the 'construction' zone. 

This is what we're starting with - the "castle walls" you know from last year (that's DH watering a transplanted lilac in the far background). He built the terraced walls and steps leading to the upper side yard last year and it was a wonderful and beautiful accomplishment. This year's goals required the help of a lot of equipment and not as much labor on his part - except for the wood. All of our wood for our new wood rack storage system (which may not be built until next spring) was cut, hand carried, and stacked by DH. A lot of work that isn't super visible in the photo, except present as lots of very high shadows above the curved walls.

I currently have five palettes of paver stones in my front yard - a total of
3000 paver blocks. It will be nice to have them gone and a new patio laid
by the end of the week - at least that's the schedule and the goal. Weather
could put a cramp into the schedule, but we're crossing our fingers. 

The current patio is toast - the blocks are crumbling and quite ugly. They will be ripped up and taken to a concrete recycling facility in the next suburb east of us. The landscapers will be laying down new paver stones instead of the old pavers, after the ground has been leveled and properly graded. Right now I have 3000 paver stones (five palettes of wrapped stones) sitting in my front yard, slightly screened from the main road by my bushes and a crumbling fence.

Looking from the back door across to the neighbor's fence and shed, all of this
land will be regraded and in the area of that lighter soil to the back left,
it will have a base of firm foundation soil prepared for the new shed that
will be installed at the end of next month. You can see the two wires
and that funny log dangle in the back left of the photo. 

Looking across from the back door towards the chain link fence separating our backyard from the neighbor's yard, is this expanse of earth. Remember that large pile of dirt we had delivered earlier in the summer? Most of that dirt was put here to help raise the level of earth. Now the large equipment will come in and move all of this around, getting it to a new level and creating new pathways for water runoff. We're already getting much better water pathways since the castle walls were constructed, but still need to control the water better. The creek, where all of the water flows toward, is on the left.

Looking a bit closer at where the new shed will be installed, the creek
is beyond the trees at the left edge, those anchoring wires with the
hanging log piece from the tree that was removed is in the center
of the photo, and the neighbor's chain linked fence and storage shed
is on the right. It won't look like this by the time I get home from
work tonight, I'm sure. 

Today is also the first day when all of the swimmers will be in the indoor pool - until next year, Memorial Day weekend. It's time to get used to sharing a lane with Rosemary once again, and our new swimmers who joined over the summer will have to see where they fit into the pecking order and lane assignments. It's going to be a mess for the first couple of weeks, so I'll have to be ready to change clothing VERY quickly so that I don't lose my 1/2 lane next to Rosemary. Eventually everyone learns where they fit in and things loosen up. We have our regular swimmers and the new people need to work around that.

Have a great Monday. I'm happy because my football team won big yesterday and are now 2-0. DH is a bit grumpier because his team lost yesterday and they are now 1-1. It was a beautiful day at Renaissance Fest, though - Pet Day and Pirate Day, so lots of wonderful dogs all around us to enjoy. Only two weekends more for Fest this year - Irish weekend coming up, and then Oktoberfest to wrap it all up on the last day of September and first day of October. Huzzah!