Pondering On A Whim: The Backyard

So, to refresh, this is what the cleaned out yard looked like from March '09 to March 2010.

Once again it was another city dump week, and time to bust up that ugly "patio" if I was really going to do it. I had mixed emotions - because the yard as is was functional, although not pretty, and if I nixed the cement monstrosity then all I would have is a mostly useless mudpit until I did something about it.

The point of no return.

I contemplated renting a jackhammer on my own, but decided some things are best left to boys, ie those possessing upper body strength. Ever handy brother-in-law had a couple friends in the construction business willing to do the job for hire. They came bright and early Saturday morning (a week before the curb dump) with a super noisy compressor and jackhammer in tow. I let them in, watched for a few minutes, and got out of dodge. I don't envy the headache my neighbors might have gotten if they stuck around all day, but I did feel sufficiently bad about the noise. Less bad when they keep me up 'till all hours with their parties and oom paa paa music blaring, but I digress...

Spent the day away, and came home to this:

Wow. The edges/curb of the patio turned out to have their own deep footing/foundation that went a foot or two down, and rebar. The guys couldn't even quite get to the worst part in the back corner which was about 4 feet deep, and finished it up the next week.

Need to see that transformation again from a different angle?

Wow again. I stared, for quite a long time at that pile. Amazing how it multiplies when you break it up. Those dudes were totally amazing to do that all in a day! I heard later they just passed out that night, hardly able to move. I don't blame them!

But as I stared at that mountain of broken concrete. It suddenly dawned on me - sitting before me was a ginormous potential pile of FREE PAVERS. So awesome. Not only would I save the money of disposing of it (the city takes one cubic yard free, then requires a fee per additional cubic yard), but I could probably save thousands from not having to purchasing concrete wall blocks.

My creative self loves having materials to work with (especially free)! Problem solving is something I excel at, blank canvases however, are quite the struggle...

And so the garden wall tetris game began. Only quite a bit more muscles required than the original Tetris. Too bad it took me until the very end when I was making due with the very last pieces and smashing them with a hammer to fit, that I realized I could have done that from the beginning, and saved myself a great deal of work in switching out pieces!

I had a general idea of what I wanted the yard to look like, fruit trees around the outside, with a path leading about, a new deck/patio, perhaps a pergola over, an arbor in the right corner, and probably a shed in the back left. What I really wanted was a gazebo, not a shed. But gazebos are expensive!

In the pic on the right you can see the fruit trees in the back, bought by me on a big nursery sale, a little early I guess, first I had to build the places to plant them. Back by the fence are the walls I started to build with the old patio pieces. I took the week off work - had to determine how much of that stuff I wanted to keep, and what was going to get dumped out front!

The boys came back the next Saturday to finish up and help haul. I went to buy a heavy duty wheelbarrow for myself and probably spent half an hour picking out the best one with no scratches or dings (perfectionist), and then an hour later was tossing chunks of concrete into it. Haha sometimes I'm a little ridiculous. That wheelbarrow is quite scratched and dinged now!

This year, I actually remembered to take pictures of the pile. The city guy ended up estimating it was about six cubic yards of concrete, and that's after I kept most of it!

Bubba was a super big help! Babysitting the baby trees, pushing/pulling the wheelbarrow. And enjoying the large playground of rocks! What? Who lets an 19 month old play in a concrete pit? Haha, not me, that was totally the parentals!