Yard Man Returneth....

 

There is the old saying,  "A man's home is his castle..."  

Well, Tommy's castle is more like a double-wide, 

when you look at the exterior... 

The basement project, 

aka "Endless Disaster" 

transformed our lush surroundings to concrete, 

debris, weeds and mud for nearly three years...  

Although the project is still not totally completed...

don't ask...  

I'd finally had it with the despair 

I felt every time I looked out the window... 

We saved up a little cash 

 and I hit the Home Depot for some shrubs.  

They were half off!  

Then I got a little crazy and asked a local nursery 

to give me an estimate for sod 

and landscaping for the front/back of the house...

  

Trust me, their ideas were lovely, but the estimate came to, 

brace yourself....

$4,000.00 to sod approximately 

300 square feet and throw in a few bushes and a tree...  

That number was about, oh... 

$3500.00 MORE than I had budgeted for the deal... 

Call me naive, but I needed to figure this out a cheaper way... 

Well the answer is obvious....

Do it yourself!  

So, Tom and I took deep breaths, 

psyched ourselves up 

and scheduled the delivery of sod, soil conditioner, 

compost and two bushes... 

We rented a roto-tiller and bought an extra shovel...  

Now we understand why those landscaping guys 

are so strong and wiry...  

Scraping away two inches of weeds that are overgrown, 

 with wet soil is HARD work... 

Plus it rained buckets the night before, 

so the stuff was super heavy... 

We roto-tilled, 

scraped, 

raked, 

bagged, 

hauled, 

leveled, 

planted 

and then placed the grass in neat, herringbone patterns...  

We looked like mile 22 of the Muddy Iron Man competition 

and we felt like $2.00 

when we were finished about 5 hours later...

 

Despite the pain, heat, sweat and suffering, 

it was so worth it... 

We love the results 

and now my Yard Man is back...

Before the "Endless Disaster", 

we had a lovely yard in the front and back...  

Tom lovingly mowed the grass 

(it took about 7 minutes) 

in perfect lines...

  

He meticulously hand picked weeds 

from his and the neighbor's yards...

We sat on the front porch at dusk, 

wine in hand 

and enjoyed our little piece of heaven... 

Now, with our own sweat equity, it is back... 

Tom's castle 

(outdoors, anyway) 

has returned and we will enjoy the rest of the summer 

with a yard that no longer is redneck paradise...  

Now if only we can fix the rotting steps out front.......

And paint the shingles...

And.........