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This is a project we’ve planned for years. There is an area in the front yard where several trees produce enough shade that bermuda grass won’t grow. Whenever I mow the weeds and undesirable grass that does grow there, it is always a dust storm. Finally we have gotten this project underway. We have created a stone border around the shaded area (Thanks for the help, Bobby!), placed several limestone boulders about (Thanks TJ!), and planted several dozen decorative plants (Thanks Tristan, Junior, Leigh, and Dave’s tractor!). Finally we covered the whole thing in with red mulch to match the landscaping in front of the house (Thanks Erick!). More photos are available in the gallery.

Soon after I completed Phase 1 of the Dry Creek Bed, we got an incredible amount of rain incredibly quickly. I saw reports of between 6 and 8 inches in just a few hours.

Water was filling all the ditches, rushing over the road, and washing my carefully placed river rock down to the very back of my property. Scariest of all is that the front yard was so flooded, that water rose onto our porch, coming right up to the front door threshold.

So not only do I have to do a lot of reworking of the creek, but I now plan to do some excavating to make the front yard drain better, to avoid the possibility of the house getting flooded if we ever have huge torrents of rain like that again.

Spring Break means another huge landscaping project. This year, we put in a 200 foot long dry creek bed. We are at the lowest point on the road, and we’ve had a problem with water draining through places we don’t want it to. We’ve finally decided to show nature who’s boss and route the water where we want it to go. This involved raising a low area, and more importantly, digging a trench. Luckily I was able to borrow a Bobcat skid-steer loader early in the project to get the basic shape of the trench started. This was incredibly helpful to getting the project going, and since I had never driven one before, it was also a rather fun learning experience.

I was also able to borrow a neighbor’s excellent Kubota tractor, which included a front loader and a box blade. This allowed me to complete the trench and was also instrumental in hauling and spreading the “river rock” gravel base and Brazos cobble stone top layer.

We finally completed this phase of the landscaping project that we started during Spring Break. We created a border around all the landscaped areas with some stone that we’d had sitting on palettes since we first moved in. We also finished planting, and put down 5 cubic yards of red mulch. This was the easy part compared to the tilling, digging, raking, hoeing, and hauling that we did previously. At some point I’ll take some photos from duplicate points of view as some shots I took when we first moved in. This will really show the difference and how much work we’ve done. There are a few photos right here, and a few more if you go to the gallery.

After our fun trip, we were ready to get some work done with the remainder of our Spring Break. The goal was to extend the existing flower garden from the sidewalk all the way to the garage, and to create a new smaller flower garden on the other side of the house.

Thursday, we went to Home Depot to rent a tiller and buy some plants, fertilizer and topsoil. Once we got that stuff home, the tilling, raking, shoveling, and hauling was to begin in earnest. Unfortunately, the tiller wouldn’t start. The engine was completely seized up. If I pulled any harder, the rope was going to break.

After Home Depot Trip #2 to return the first tiller, the second one worked fine. Michelle and Andrew had the exhausting task of raking up the dirt and grass I was tilling and hauling it away so we could get to some grass-free dirt for the flower bed. We got lots of the work done before I tilled up a brick which bent a tine so badly, that the tiller could no longer turn. Time for Home Depot Trip #3. Michelle took mercy on me and made this trip to get yet another tiller.

When she got this tiller home, it was well past dark, but I wanted to finish the job. Well, that wasn’t to be, because this tiller’s engine was seized up also! It was a different model from the first one so I couldn’t believe that it had the exact same problem. It looked like it was time for Home Depot Trip #4, but I ended up fixing the tiller with a HATCHET. That’s not as violent (or satisfying) as it sounds. By removing the pull rope assembly, I was able to fit the blunt end of the hatchet into a notch and finally force the engine to turn. When I finally got it started, it blew out oily smoke for several minutes. It turns out the “seized up” problem was caused by tilting the tiller to get it to fit in the back of our SUV (just like the Home Depot rental guy told us to). This made oil run into parts of the engine it wasn’t supposed to be in.

Once the thing was running well enough to use, it was past 10. I didn’t want to disturb any neighbors too badly, so I only tilled for a little while. On Friday, I finished with the tiller and returned it to Home Depot. At that point, Michelle and I had tons of raking, hoeing and shoveling left to do. In a race to beat the coming rainstorms, we got everything planted that we wanted to, as well as completed part of a stone border that we hadn’t planned to do yet. That evening, we enjoyed some well-earned rest and relaxation, including board and DVD games with visiting friends.

Stupidly, I didn’t take any “before” pictures of what we were working on. Soon I’ll post some “after” shots.

This time some of Ace’s neighborhood pals picked up some scrap lumber from a construction site and we made another ramp: A “spine”. We did have to buy some new plywood for the actual surface of the ramp, but using the scrap certainly saved us some money. We started out with some plans from the Internet, but because we are experienced skate ramp builders now, we soon abandoned them and built the spine however we wanted to. It turned out pretty good, and the guys have been getting lots more use out of it than I expected.

Michelle went to the Canton Trade Days today and came back with some stick furniture made in Arkansas. I knew I shouldn’t have let her go to Canton with a friend who had a pickup. Anyway, Michelle likes it OK, and supposedly it looks rustic.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been in the process of building a new “dry lay” patio just off of the back porch. It turned out to be double the expected cost and 10 times the expected physical labor, but since Michelle likes the finished product, it was all worth it. Click here for a construction history photo album.

   

What a busy weekend! Andrew, Cameron, Derek, and I built a fairly sizable skate ramp over the weekend. We’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and since my Mom was visiting, we were able to use her truck to get all the lumber we needed. This was quite a learning experience and took longer than it should have, but with this job under our belt, the next project will go much faster.

After suffering a work stoppage because of a dead battery in our power driver/drill, we finally finished the ramp late in the evening. To our horror, it started to rain right as the last screw was tightened. That didn’t stop the boys from taking some wet, slick rides. They went back out late that night after it had dried up a bit, but the real breaking-in was the next morning when it was sunny again.

They got brave enough to do some proper “drop-ins” from the 3-foot-high top. This project was tons of work, but it should get tons of use and end up being well worth the effort. Click the image to see a gallery of photos.

Our ramp is a slightly modified version of the plans found here: http://www.slapmagazine.com/new_site/woodshop/quarter/index.shtml

 We are really digging the new house. So much work to do still, though. For a while, I was almost dead (I added yet another “Person most likely to be mistaken for a corpse” award to my huge collection.)

Thank God we had tons of help, or we would have never gotten done. Since Monday, everyone who has come to the new house has stopped at the old house to pick up a load. We had countless Rodeo, CRV, Caravan, Highlander, Tacoma, and Ram loads brought down. By Tuesday night, we had moved an impressive amount of boxes and such. At one point I started thinking that we wouldn’t need a very large U-Haul to get the remainder. Boy was I wrong!

On Wednesday, I picked up the 26-foot “Super Mover” at 8am. The worst part about moving during the week is that lots of the crew wasn’t available to help until the evening. So Michelle and I start loading up the U-Haul by ourselves, and as I predicted, we started thinking $1500 for movers sounded better and better. Luckily, my firefighter pal Joe (Amanda’s husband) was able to start helping in the early afternoon and we had that “Super Mover” packed to the top, from the front to the back. (Photos later, after I can find my CF card reader in whatever box it’s in.) Joe had a prior engagement, so he couldn’t help me unload once I drove that behemoth down here (The truck was so big I couldn’t get it into my new driveway – I had to drive it on the so-called lawn). Surprisingly, one of Michelle’s cousins whom I barely know was waiting to help me unload. We had gotten it about half unloaded when a huge caravan of packed vehicles and workers showed up. The remainder of the unloading went quickly, but chaotically. Due to haphazard stacking, the garage was full way earlier than it should have been. We had to stop unloading at one point and rearrange the garage so we get everything else to fit.

The next morning, we went to the old house with the plan of picking up what I expected to be the “few” remaining items. I thought with how much stuff the 5 additional vehicles had brought down Wednesday night, surely the house and garage must nearly be empty. I was nearly floored when I saw how much remained. I quickly determined that we needed another U-Haul. This time we got a 17-foot “Easy Loading Mover” – much easier to drive with its automatic transmission – and started filling it up. Joe showed up again and we packed that whole truck full and again, Joe had to leave. (He’s worked harder than most anyone and has yet to see the new house). Joey came down and he and I unloaded the 17-footer (after more garage rearranging) and finally I was able to sit down and have a beer.

We’ve been sleeping on beds without frames and my computer desk right now is a file cabinet. We’ve got tons of work still to do, but at least the time pressure is off, and we can unpack and settle in at our leisure.

On a fun note, the proper home theater is really gonna happen. I have ordered the Sony VPL-HS20 Front Projector and it should be arriving early next week. Then I will get to determine the best placement for it, build the screen, and finally pick out some cool seating. We’re thinking something like the red seats near the middle of this page: http://www.palliser.com/?action=view_catalog&Join_ID=335234&template=living_home_theatre_group.htm7