Distractions, among neighbors

So Mother's Day. I have been trying to get this HD project, plant carrier, painted with Sam since we made it two weekends ago. The workbench took up the first week and I just didn't get to it until Saturday night when I painted the bottom, inside and out, so that it was sure to be somewhat water resistant in the case of the potted plant leaking. I got two coats of black on it after Sam went to bed, ready for him to paint the rest of it in the morning.

Sam helped paint each side at a time; royal blue, a lighter blue, yellow and orange. It took several coats of each paint color and we were in and out of the garage as each color dried. Aimee was talking with her parents on Skype, so Sam was checking out what they were doing and interjecting his own information and antics in the process while we were inside.

Once the paint was all done and dried, we had some flower and lady bug foam stickers, they provided with the project, and Sam stuck them on the outside of the box. It was looking pretty good and all that was left was to give it to Aimee.

Sam seemed quite proud of his box and was maybe a little disappointed he was making it for his Mom; he kept saying he wanted to make one for himself. I will have to see what I can come up with for him to have one.

I ended up going outside and starting on determining how much dirt I was going to have to remove from in front of the Rhode we took out in the front yard: the ground along the front of the house is sloping the wrong way, toward the house. I discovered it was going to need to be dug down about 3-4 inches out about 8 feet from the house to give it a 2 inch drop from the level at the house. I still have to look it up to see what is recommended so hopefully it won't require it to be lower than that.

I guess I need a better picture... will try to replace this one after the sun goes down and my phone won't black out the shadows, or I could just take it with the DSLR that wouldn't have that problem. 

I got about a 4 feet wide section at the end of the house dug down to that level but realizing I was going to need to dig down that for all along the front of the house, as well as down the side of the house, was not a good realization. That 8 feet from the house is about where the grass is going to start so it looks like I will be redoing the grass in the front as well. 4 inches is just a little too much of a ledge next to the existing grass to not require to level it out a little.  It will allow me to make the grass area a little more level than how sloped it is now.

Since we were talking about what to do with the front next to the road when I was taking out the yucca, we decided we would make a berm like the neighbors across the street, with landscape timbers creating a retaining wall to hold the dirt back at the road side. I will need to take out the railroad ties that are there now, put in the landscape timbers (pinned together with spikes) and then use the dirt from next to the house to build up the ground for the berm.

While I was out there, the neighbor next door came over to fulfill his offer to help me move some dirt with the tractor he was borrowing. He and two of his boys, maybe his son and his son's friend, came over and moved the two big piles of dirt I had in the back, left over from the dry well holes that I didn't need to refill the holes, but will eventually need for all the raised beds we are putting in. I had to take down the section of the fence where the gate is so he could get the tractor to the back yard, but it is in such bad shape and the post by the gate was already broken off when I was trenching that all it took was me bending it at the other post til the nails gave and moving a fern out of the way; that got planted in the front by where I was filling in the rhode hole.

About 5 or 6 buckets full of the two boys and me shoveling what Chuck couldn't scoop with the slightly quirky tractor, we have a big pile in front of the shed where the grass will not be and the area where it was is now clear for grass and raised bed preparations. I was quite spent after trying to keep up with the teenagers, not that I felt I had to, I was just working along side them and getting way more winded than them. I guess I should have just stood back and let them do it.

I guess next I need to finish clearing out the sprinkler line trench so I can get that in, bury the sprinkler line and then get the new zone hooked up to the valve box. the hooking up may have to wait for a little bit until some other things get started, but will need to happen before grass goes in.