Boys and their toys

Since it is snowing once again...grrrrr and brrrrr, I'll write about something that we did in November. Before skid steer rental. Notice the grass covered mound of dirt.

When we purchased the house, the north side yard was completely overgrown. Close to the fence was a large mound of dirt that woodchucks and chipmunks were calling "Home Sweet Home". To this day we have no idea what it's purpose was or if it was just a staging area and was really meant to go elsewhere. Our new neighbor "Gary" said it had been there as long as they had been in their home (16yrs). Oh well....it's gone now!!!!!! Also in the "after" photo you can see a concrete bench. While we were clearing the side yard we found the walkway first, then the raised area, then one end of a bench, and then another end of the bench. I figured the top broke at some point and that is why the end pieces were tossed into the brush pile. A year later we found the top. Yeah!!!! One of the end pieces had broken into two pieces. Roger drilled two holes in each piece and inserted threaded rod then epoxied the two pieces together. Good as new!!!!!

As you can see from the "before" photo, it was waaaaaaaaaay too much dirt to shovel by hand. So it was off to the heavy equipment rental store to rent a skid steer with a scoop shovel. Roger was in seventh heaven....oooooh baby......heavy equipment......."I need one of these"....ya right.

The rental cost for a skid steer with shovel and jack hammer attachment (I'll talk about that in a later post) from Friday evening (6pm) to Monday morning (9am) was $400.00. Definitely worth the cost. We completed the following tasks....dirt rearranging, boulder rearranging, shrub stump removal (6), and the removal of the side concrete porch and the small concrete landing at the back door. During the dirt rearranging...a little more over here.....I think you missed a spot!!!!

After a brief 10 minutes test drive, my husband was off and running. I guess all those years of racing cars finally paid off. Any job is easier and goes faster with the right tool. As you can see from the "after" photo, all that is left to do is rake and plant grass seed.

The raised area at the end of the walkway looks like it may have had a fountain. The center part has been filled in with sand. During the winter we purchased a 7' 6" cast iron 3 tier fountain. Hopefully this summer we will be able to install it. My plan is to run the fountain off a small solar panel.

After 4 hours of fun and games...all it needs is a little raking...ya right!!!