Now that it is Thursday, I am finally getting Monday's post posted. My excuse--I have had a lot of things going on this week! But here are pictures of our continuing backyard saga.
After the Dr. walked through the door last Friday evening, we let him recover for a few minutes from his 92 hour work week. It is amazing what a 20 minute power nap will do!! Then we put him right to work again!
Digging, painful digging. I have to say that I can take credit for the part of the circle you see already dug out. I had been getting up and digging in the morning before it got hot for as long as my arms could take the work.
Jace was hard at work until the bitter end of this project. I was impressed with the ramp he built all himself with boards he found in the garage.
Look at the hard, dry, clay that had to be chipped out of the ground! And look at that cute Christopher Robin hauling another load up his ramp to the dumping site!
The Dr. kept at it even after dark. He is like his Dad. Once they start working, they don't stop 'til the job is done, or they drop from exhaustion! I could tell he was having fun digging with his boy
and his girl!
Saturday morning we were to here--still about 4 inches from level on the high(right) side.
Around 7:45AM the dump truck came with our 4 tons of manufactured sand/gravel to fill the hole.
Jace immediately filled his trucks and ran them to the backyard. Ryan had to explain that he couldn't dump the gravel in until it was level.
We had the beef Days Parade at 10:00 so we stopped work and went to the parade. I wanted to keep at it, but I am glad Ryan hauled us to Solon, Iowa.
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| Little Rue with her trademark expression. |
The kids had a great time. They picked up several pounds of candy that was tossed to them.
Gracie loved the horses and Jace loved the big machinery. I loved the Tootsie Rolls they threw at us and Ryan loved being there with his family.
When we came home we saw our looming hole that still needed so much work. We dug until after 5:00PM. We ended up digging out a total of 16 inches of dirt on the high side and 4 inches on the low side.
Then Andy-our neighbor- came and helped Ryan haul the sand.
I was so glad to see him arrive. I did not have it in me to help haul that stuff.
With 2 wheelbarrows and two dump trucks running with gravel/sand, it was all done within 90 minutes.
I smoothed the sand with the rake-which was actually quite hard to do.
Jace said his favorite part was listening to the gravel fall in the hole when he dumped it out of his dump truck. He is like his Dad and Poppy! He worked himself to exhaustion. He loved it. When he has to help me clean the house, he does not show any enthusiam--mostly just tears, but this kind of work as you can see--right up his alley!!
Tom-Andy's Dad- came over just in time to help Ryan level the sand to perfection. We had to get everything level with 1 inch. After they were done, the gravel was smooth as glass.
By then it was around 8:00PM and stage II of our saga began.
End Part I
( I will work on posting part II tonight-I promise)
look at all that progress!!!
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