Removing a cement pad

This has been an exhausting weekend. I bought hollies last week at McLean Nurseries, so now I need to prepare the back of the yard to plant them. This means removing the cement pad that a previous owner put in, I think for a fountain that never worked. It was about 4'x8', and maybe 5" deep, with a border of cinderblocks. I really wish we had removed two years ago, when it was exposed. A layer of dirt and rubble has accumulated over it that I had to shovel away. Then I went to United Rentals to rent a jackhammer.


This was my progress after a Saturday:



Daniel helped get me started, and helped for a couple hours between World Cup games on Sunday. After two days, here is the resulting hole, and pile of cement chunks (the city doesn't come get them until Thursday, so I can't put them on the curb until Wednesday).




And one more pile of rubble:


In breaking up the pad, we found some nice pavers and buckets of nice stones.


I ended the evening by making this cake.

Let me just say, though, that I do not like doing all this labor myself. You know who you are....

Google Maps Street View of Our House!

So this is a little creepy. We discovered yesterday that Google Maps street view has a very up to date picture of our house. You can see the fence we're putting in and the new trees the city planted. If the cat were in the window, you'd be able to see him, too. This is weird.

Grass is growing!

This is apparent in the picture with the shed, but I wanted to point it out again: we have grass!!! It was a LOT of effort that Sunday a few weeks back, but it's so exciting to have a green yard. well, green, with a new layer of yellow. We'll have to start raking - carefully - soon.

New Shed

Our shed was delivered today - hooray! It's very pretty, if a shed can be pretty. It seems like a well-built shed, too. We got it from the place by the Amish Market in Burtonsville - Beiler Structures.


Just one guy in a Ford F-150 came to deliver it.


It was set up on PVC pipes to roll it around, but it was still a lot of effort to get it into place.

We'll have to fix where the truck drove over over the new grass, but the yard looks good so far.