Backyard Project Continues Apace

In case you were wondering, the backyard project is still a going concern. We have been working out the details for almost a year now, and to be really picky, we've been toying with this since we moved back in '06. Now, we see some of the fruits of our labor (and hard earned cinquecentos) springing to life. See many more pics here, here, and here.



So far, we've saved a pun-tacular truck-load of those little coin thingys by taking shameless advantage of Katie and Andy's vehicular hospitality. We'd have spent several hundreds on truck rentals alone at this point, so we are molto grato to the new Hillsboro threesome (sorry, Nerv, forgot you).

We've moved about 15 tons of rock, gravel, and sand, and we're barely getting started so far. That's besides the 18 full truck loads of sod, fill dirt, and yard debris that we have hauled away.

The early year's extra rain delayed our start on this project; I started stripping sod in February by hand only to have the 20x10-foot patch practically regrow itself before we could strip any sod again in June. July hit us like a brick oven, and we're now working under wilting heat (for us poor "forgotten-our-heat-derived-SoCal-roots" who enjoy the cooler temps of the NW now).

We're nearly done with the raised patio with the pergola, and then work will begin excavating for the pond and waterfall area. I expect that to be another 20-40 truck beds worth of dirt. No shortage of exercise this year...