Work on the backyard

Sunday was exhausting! Seth and I spent the day moving soil and planting grass, but hopefully in a few weeks we'll have a green lawn.

As a reminder, here is what the yard used to look like:
The boxed frame on the right is for a future shed.
(see also this old post for a picture of what the yard looked like after our driveway contractors finished with it).

We wanted a green lawn, and to do that we needed to do a LOT of work. Since the driveway people dumped sand and clay over the yard, we needed to till that, then spread good soil, then spread seed.

On top of doing this to the lawn, we're preparing a base for a shed. This should have been done in August, but we procrastinated and have paid for it. Seth (with help from George and I) used 8 6x6s notched together to create the box frame, which he then nailed together and used 4ft rebar to keep in place. Since the yard slopes down, the front of the box was dug down a bit, and the rear was raised up. Then we had 10 scoops of gravel delivered from Ernest Maier ($150 delivery, plus ~$200 in gravel) and dumped into the frame. I was home for this delivery, and got a lot of the gravel leveled out (with some help from Daniel, too).


Since the shed wouldn't be coming for at least a week, though, I let the gravel sit like this to work on other things. I made an appointment for the soil to be delivered on Friday.

Story about the soil: Our city runs a program where they collect lawn clippings, leaves, etc and mulch it, then sell it back to the residents. It's really good soil, and cheap. We ordered 4 cubic yards, prescreened, and delivered, for a total of $86.60. We could have used a bit more, but 4 yards was mostly enough.

I left a message with the city to have the driver get our neighbor, who held the check and was to direct where to dump the soil. I also left a note on our door. Did the driver get the neighbor? NO. Daniel said by the time he put shoes on after seeing the truck pull up, the guy had already dumped the soil - ON TOP OF THE GRAVEL. Well, not entirely on top of, but overlapping.


What is the point of ordering screened soil only to have it delivered on top of gravel? And it could have seriously compromised our ~$1000 shed base. Soil should not be mixing with that gravel, or covering that wood. Plus, it added a LOT of work to separate the two, and resulted in a pile of tainted gravel/soil.


Seth was really irate about this. Today (Monday) I went to the city's public works office to express our displeasure. The director apologized and returned my check to me, which I thought was excellent of him. They give away 5 yards of this stuff in the spring to each resident, so I guess it doesn't cost them much money, but I still appreciate his gesture and the fact that he listened to my gripe about the delivery.

So after getting the soil on Friday, we rented a rototiller on Saturday from United Rentals in Bladensburg. We didn't till much on Saturday; we mostly separated gravel. We did run the sprinkler on the lawn to soften it up so the tiller would have a chance of going though it on Sunday. We just got a 5hp Honda front tine tiller. They had a mega one that was a true rear tine, but we wanted to try the smaller/cheaper one first. Thanks Sharon for lending us your truck!

The tiller worked, with lots of effort. The handles were a little low, so it strained Seth's back to run it. But we got it through (good soil has already been spread on the left side of the image).


George came over and helped spread soil and even out the gravel, too. Thanks, George! His payment for labor: beer and wings during the Steelers game. :)

And finally, after missing the Bills game, we had a shaped, even, planted yard:

I can't wait until it's green and we can enjoy a day in our backyard.