Monday, November 9, 2009

Buckets O' Dirt

Sorry I've been neglecting this blog lately. Initially it was due to fun stuff; Phil, Jeffrey & I spent a great day at the Boulder Cup cyclocross race. Katie Compton crushed the women's field and Tim Johnson handily won the men's event.

Phil & I had recently watched The 9 Ball Diaries (2008) (run time 50 minutes) which followed Tim Johnson in the 2006 cyclocross season, so it was fun to see him racing in Boulder. [2.5 Stars. Good race footage, but not much story. Never even explained the “9 Ball” uniform. Best part about the film – the Drop Kick Murphy’s version of Amazing Grace used in the soundtrack – sweet!! ]



Then, the not so fun stuff began . . . Phil has been trying to beat the weather and get a jump on some landscaping projects that we neglected all summer while we were off riding our bikes.

Phase 1: building a foot-path around the rear of the house to Phil's shop and also around the front of the house. The front path doesn't really go anywhere, but it looks nicer than the vacant dirt patch that was left behind after I bullied Phil into tearing out the nasty half-dead juniper bushes that used to grace our front yard.
Scraping off the sod was a full-time one day project for our hard-working friend Gene.

5 gallon buckets full of crusher fines - the first 20 or so buckets don't feel too bad, but by the end of day it is sheer torture to lift them up into the wheelbarrow.

When I got home from work Friday this pile of crusher fines was about 3 times larger than it is today; we moved a lot of dirt!! (and have plenty more to move . . .)

The front path - edging stones placed; drainage lines installed; sprinkler lines moved, accidently cut, spliced & repaired; and first layer of crusher fines placed.

Heading toward the rear of the shop . . .

Looks better than the weedy, rooty mess that used to be here.

Our current challenge - convincing Rex & Fritz that we didn't spend two backbreaking days building them the Best. Litter. Box. Ever!! We need to get the final layer of coarse rock in place soon!!

1 comment:

  1. Oh, my goodness. It looks like the backbreaking job you did in the cave, but you had daylight to enjoy. A little bobcat was too big, huh?? Well, it's lookin' great. And Phil can still get those canister lights installed above the walkway!! Peggy

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