Birth of a Backyard...and a Garden...Day 2

Day two began a little differently. Being spring in Colorado the change in weather was no big surprise. Cloudy and very cool. Long-sleeved t-shirts under sweatshirts for us, fleece-lined jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, and a fleece jacket for Luke. Gloves were also a must to keep the hands from being quite cold. Still, the wind had died down some...shocking in and of itself...so the coolish weather was kind of nice. Even nicer was being a little bit sore, but not nearly as much as either of us expected.

Jeff started with the tiller while I finished getting breakfast dishes cleaned up. He stopped about halfway through so I could take a turn. What a great little machine our friend lent us! The work on our part was keeping the thing from dragging us all over the yard. It was full of GO! So it took very little time to get the yard tilled up and ready for seeding.

Jeff was able to start with the fertilizer and seed spreading while I finished fishing pieces of shale that had floated to the surface overnight and during tilling. Once the seed was spread I started the task of light raking with a leaf rake to cover the seed. Unlike the heavy work of spreading the dirt even and thick yesterday, today's cover work was quite therapeutic. Luke opted to help Jeff put a little topsoil and bio-comp into the space around the tree and along the side of the driveway where I had pulled the rocks last weekend, along with spreading a bit of seed and fertilizer into those spaces. I can't tell you how happy I am to see those rocks gone! I never realized how much I didn't like them until they were gone. Now the lawn can overtake those spaces. The two of them also got the garden plot tilled.

While I continued to cover rake in the backyard, four robins came to supervise. I was only about a quarter of the way done when they arrived. They were chattering at me, flitting from our roof, to the fence, to the top of the little pile of topsoil still left (future flower garden material), to the neighbor's house and storage building roofs. It was almost like they were congratulating and thanking us for getting this project done! Very cute. I joked that they were supervising at first, but the moment the rake left the ground because I was finished with the covering.....they left. We didn't see them the remainder of the day. Definitely supervising.

I made a quick trip to the front yard to cover the seed placed in the driveway edge strip and around the tree, followed by putting some water on the garden plot to make the bio-comp heat up and get to work. Another week or two and I'll get some seeds planted there....stuff that won't freak out when we get a few more freezes. Oh, and I have to figure out a little something to keep the rabbits out. I've got an idea, and it doesn't involve my original thought of a low-voltage fence charger. I think the rabbits will be happy about that one...Rico, the neighbor's dog, probably will be, too!

Time for a quick lunch. Luke wasn't thrilled with the prospect of coming in the house, but his stomach started talking before his bum hit any chairs this time. He saw me with the lunchmeat and pulled the chair into place, then ate a hefty amount. I'll always be amazed at that boy's appetite! Jeff went back out to fill the roller with water, I made Luke's day with changing his diaper. Trust me, he needed it....despite his best efforts to convince me otherwise. Back outside for us. Luke was happy to follow his daddy behind the roller for a little bit, but decided it was more fun to take handfuls of this wonderful dirt into the garage to dump in Red's water dish. Now it's a bowl full of mud. I took over the roller duties at the halfway point. It was not as much work as I expected, but the results were fanstastic. It's not a perfectly level yard, but we did a really great job getting it quite even and free of valleys!

Jeff put the t-posts in the ground while I was finishing with the roller. It would be a shame to have our hard work messed up by a dog who doesn't know any better, so we had to prepare a temporary fence to keep him off the stuff until it grows in. Yard all set to go, posts set in the ground, and a toddler who was still having fun traversing the new play area, we set about putting the deer netting up. Jeff held it up and tight while I tied it to the t-posts. It was a good system! All went very smoothly....until the last 10 feet. That was all we had left to "fence," and we ran out of netting. 10 lousy feet!

Okay, no big deal. A friend stopped by to see the progress and chat with Jeff, so Luke and I ran to Walmart and Lowe's for a few things...including a 100 foot roll of deer netting. Yup, I had to buy the whole 100 feet for the 10 foot space still left open. But we also picked up an extra hose, a sprinkler, a plant for the big flower bed, a small bag of grass seed to help fill in any spots that we may have missed, and a hose extension to help ease getting the hose connected to the spigot that's hard to get to. Luke received a number of giggles and "awww, how cute," comments both places. He figured it was more comfortable to lay down and sprawl out in the cart at Walmart, then proceeded to drag the netting while carrying the hose extension at Lowe's. I guess he decided since he was the man there at the time that I didn't need to carry the stuff. Besides, I had the plant. Truly, it was cute....but I didn't have the camera.

We got home, put up the last 10 feet of netting, and let the dog out. Poor Red was rather confused....he could SEE the yard, but couldn't figure out how to get to it! Once he did figure out that he still had the space around the outside he started doing laps. Luke followed, hollering instructions and pointing the whole time. Those two are a hoot together. Jeff and I took the time to get some future flower beds marked out and mounded with fill dirt. Then it was time to clean up and take a final look at what we accomplished. It was such hard physical work the entire weekend, but now the most difficult work begins. It's not painful, it certainly won't win fitness awards, but it is, by far, the most difficult.

Now we wait.....

We wait for the grass to grow. In an era when we're often given instant gratification, waiting for grass to grow is almost torture! But it is all worth it in the end. A few more weeks and we'll actually be able to say we have a back lawn. Another month or so and our boy will be able to romp outside with his dog where we won't have to keep a constant lookout for cars. And our very first summer in this house that we can fully enjoy our big backyard. I can't wait to lay in the grass with Luke and Jeff while watching planes (most of the courtesy of the U.S. Air Force), birds, and clouds during the daytime, satellites, shooting stars, and the full moon at night.

Luke is conked out hard again tonight. He did manage to stay wide awake and laugh at the silly things in the shower, but he readily fell asleep once in his pajamas. Jeff did basically the same. Shower, pajamas, sound asleep in a matter of minutes. I can hear a chorus of big and small snores coming from down the hall. I think they have the right idea.....I can dream about the lovely yard that was born in a Pueblo West backyard this spring weekend.