It is hard to believe that Labor Day has now come and gone. It has been such a lousy summer weather wise. I know I am a professional weather complainer, but I feel like I’m justified this time. I can count on one hand the number of times the temperature got over 80 degrees at my house. And the nights, which were frequently in the 50s, were killers for the vegetable harvest. The tomatoes have been sparse and the few I have harvested have not tasted very good.
But there will be more time for looking back on summer when summer is really over. Since I contend that it never really started, I’m just going to keep waiting and pray for a really warm September and October.
The big project at our house this weekend was moving 20 yards of topsoil. This is a job we knew we had coming and we knew we had to get done but other than the satisfaction of having it finished, there wasn’t much joy in it.
We wanted to fill in grass around the driveway and grade the yard a little bit in the process. Fortunately the only thing that made this job tolerable is that we were able to borrow a machine (I don’t know what these things are called) from Mr. Much More Patient’s employer to move the soil around. All we had to do after that was rake it out and compress it a little (to avoid odd settling later). That was enough work all on its own.
After that we just had to seed it and mulch it. Unfortunately we ran out of mulch. I always buy too little of everything for a project and need to run out for more. Except it was Labor Day and nothing was open. So mulch will wait.
In addition to the satisfaction of having a big job checked off the list, there’s a certain amount of satisfaction that comes from having done this ourselves. Mr. Much More Patient got a quote from a landscaper to do this job. It was about $2,000. So far we’ve spent less than $400 ($300 on the topsoil, plus seed, a little mulch, stakes and ribbon to cordon it off).
Anyway, here’s what it looks like at our house right now.
But there is a complicating factor. And that’s this.
We picked up the newest addition to our family on Friday night and have been busy acclimating him to the family and remembering how much work puppies are! His big sister Rita is not at all pleased at this point but we have hope she’ll come around soon. Poor little guy still doesn’t have a name!
Interesting factoid: If you spread dirt all over your yard and then get a puppy you will end up with a very dirty puppy/house and little foot holes all over your future lawn.
You are a glutton for punishment: big job AND new puppy! But he sure is cute. We hosted a big crowd for brunch Sunday a.m. and spent yesterday recovering. Today we bought a tree, a shrub and perennials. I'm ready to rest again!
Such a cute puppy! We spread 20 yards of mulch at our house over the weekend, which is much lighter than soil, so I was happy you had equipment. I can't imagine how difficult that would have been to do by hand.
I'm so happy you got a puppy!! I'm sure the house feels alive again (especially in the middle of the night!).
Great job on the landscaping project. Moving topsoil with a machine made it a bit easier, I'm sure. But that's still a lot of work!! And it was hot out there this weekend!
Question: Why did you spread mulch over the newly grass-seeded area? Was that just to protect it from the puppy? I wouldn't think you would want mulch in a grass area…but then, I don't know much about these things.
The mulch (which was some kind of paper-type product) helps keep the ground moist to help with germination and growth as well as keeping the seed from washing away in big rain. Interestingly, now that the grass is coming in, the mulched areas have far fewer weeds than the non-mulched areas so I'm thinking maybe it also helps protect it from airborne weed seeds.