Travis' Trails: Pink House Forced Landscaping - Update

Last year we were forced to landscape the backyard at the pink house when the sewer line collapsed.

I'm sure that you remember our lovely backyard PRE-dig.

Who can forget what it looked like POST-dig!

Well, we were told that the 3' tall dirt mound that was left behind would flatten out in time. It could be "helped" along by saturating it with water frequently.

Since the dig the yard has frequently been nearly flooded trying to get that mound to go down. It didn't. But we did pay for some neat street and sewer improvements in the city and I'm sure a nice vacation for the mayor with the increased water bills that we have been paying!

Once spring settled in Jules had had enough of the backyard and was asking Norm when the backyard would be leveled off and new grass grown over the monstrous scar.

Norm can be a nice guy, but energetic is not his strong suit. Since retirement he hasn't done a whole lot. I decided that I could use the brownie points with Jules and actually get double value by preventing Norm from getting them by leveling the backyard by myself.

Besides, Heath had the remote and was in NO MOOD to turn it over to me.

I can only watch educational TV for a limited time. If he liked cartoons more, or maybe the three stooges, I probably could have held out longer.

Looking at the yard it didn't seem like it would be that much of a project anyhow.

So, I got started the following morning! I jumped on top of that pile and immediately started slinging dirt. About 5 minutes later I started wondering where I could rent a bobcat from.

Then Jules mentioned that one of Norm's friends, Dave, had an old antique bobcat called a mustang. Same critter, different breed I guess. Like cousins I suppose.

Anyhow, I called Dave and he was gracious enough to come over with it and show me how to use it.

I took to it easily and really enjoyed running around in it.

I knew that there were a couple of clean-out pipes buried under the pile somewhere and figured I had better locate them with a shovel before I found them the wrong way with the mustang.

I can't figure out how someone can do this for a living! That was back breaking work moving that dirt with a shovel.

It doesn't help that I had to use Norm's shovels and he obviously has NO REGARD for vertically challenged people. All of his shovels were for normal sized individuals.

After digging for quite some time and NOT locating the clean outs I decided to just be careful and get the dirt leveled.

It took a few hours and two tanks of gas, but I got it done in a day.

Overall I think I did a fairly good job for the first time using a mustang. Not perfect, but pretty good. Dave would have done a much better job and I can't thank him enough for his help!

After getting the yard all level I mixed in some fertilizer and then the grass seed. Of course the local birds heard the dinner bell as soon as the the seed hit the ground.

I figured I could help the grass seed stay hidden and keep some of the moisture in from watering by spreading a bunch of straw over it.

Bales of straw are HEAVY!! They stink like fertilizer too after they have gotten wet and then you break them apart.

Getting the straw spread out is not a lot of fun. I think the worst part is raking it after tossing it all over the place.

I considered cutting Norm's rake down more to my size. But after looking at how wide the rake head was I figured the length of the handle would be a better fulcrum for me. I just made the best of it.