it's coming together

And the yard work continues....

I was out walking around the yard a while ago, wishing that the deep trench, filled with rocks and weeds, would just finally be turned into the beautiful dry river I had imagined in my head.

Then it hit me....what was I waiting for!!!  Forget paying someone hundreds of dollars, I could just do it myself.

So, I got on google, figured out how to do it, and went to work.

And I worked, and worked and worked.

I hauled rock for about 5 days, before it was finally completed.

It was HARD work, but I loved it.  Working outside is so refreshing for the soul.

starting out the dry river

weed barrier is down, and border is done...now have to fill in the rocks

The rocks are finally all in place, and the flowers are planted around it.  The big, big boulders should be here today, or tomorrow, and the bridge should be here by the end of the week!!!  I can't wait to post the finished product!!!

In other yard news...I chizzled rock for almost 3 hours, in order to plant these 3 bushes.  Seriously, we have no dirt...just rock.  Lots and lots of rock.  At one point, after hitting my 100th rock and jamming my finger again,  I got so frustrated, that I screamed and threw the shovel.  My neighbor came out to see what was going on.  I felt really cool.

I have some very fun finishing touches to do in this flower bed as well.  Hopefully by the end of this week, I will have some pictures of this finished product as well.

Along with this...I began planting our row of lilac bushes.  Once I planted these, the yard officially felt like "my yard."  Lilac bushes are my all time favorite!!  The smell of them throws me back to my childhood summers.  I am so excited about these!  The picture is bad, but so far, I have about half of them planted.  I smile every time I look out the window and see these.

Last, but not least, we are FINALLY putting in our parking strip.

Because we live on a corner, we have 120 yards of parking strip to put in.  Most people have about 10-20 yards.  Go us.

We decided to lay down weed barrier, and cover it with gravel type rock. Planting grass in it would be an absolute mowing nightmare.  We do plan to eventually plant trees in it, but that will probably be next year.

Ben rented a skid steer, and had the rock delivered on Friday.  Ummm yea, we spent two summers removing rock, in order to get our grass in, I spent the last two weeks, hauling that rock back into the yard to make a dry river, and now, we are PAYING for rock to cover the parking strip.  I didn't know if I wanted to cheer or cry when I saw the giant truck pouring rock in front of our yard.  The boys loved it!

The truck brining in rock...oh, and you can see the dry river completely filled in too.

The irony with the rock kills me.  Seriously.

Ben spent Saturday lying down the weed barrier and dumping rock into the parking strip. 
What a man!!!

 The next two days will be spent evening out the rock in the parking strip...and then, aside from the trees, it will be done!!

 

I am so excited for this weekend, to have so many completed projects. 

 

The last project for this year will be re doing the rock wall around our house, and planting bushes on top of it.

 

Next year will be trees, flowers, shrubs and cement where we need it.

 

It is finally all coming together!!!