At Last! Grass!

After an entire spring & summer full of work on our dirt patch, we at last saw the fruits of our labors!

 After the first tilling.  This was when we hauled in our biggest crop of rocks.

 I tilled again before we put the sprinklers in.  That was a mistake.  Had I known that

I'd have to till again anyway, I never would have done it the second time. 

 It took two Saturdays to get the sprinkler system in.  We felt trapped in our house

because we had to hop over trenches and piles of dirt all week. 

 But, sprinklers are the best thing we did, because can you imagine watering all this with two hoses?

 Finally finished!  Sprinklers in, trenches backfilled, tilled, raked and rocks hauled off....

except for the ones I just raked off to the side because I was sooooooo tired of hauling rocks. I thought surely October is a better month to haul rocks than August!

 I'm not sure how many rocks we hauled off, but I finally discovered how you get what I call "basketball arms" without actually playing basketball.  Just 4 months of raking and hauling rocks.
I think I finished raking the day before or maybe the day Tyler went to get the first load of sod.

Nobody seemed interested in delivering sod to us.  So, Tyler had to drive to Burley three times to pick it up.  Thanks to the Sharps for letting us borrow their gooseneck trailer!  The middle of August isn't exactly the best time to leave things around here, but Tyler endured a few late nights.  And, we learned not to try to unload the sod at midnight.  Just leads to disaster.  We dropped two pallets and decided to never do that again.  There was so much waste the first day from all the pieces that were torn in the fall.

So here it is....Livingstone Field.  Awaiting its first game. 

The last load of sod was really dry.  They must have cut it well in advance of us picking it up.  Anyway, as of today's date, it has made a lot of progress and greened up nicely.

 

 

Getting grass was a lot of work.  It required major time sacrifices from all of us.  But, it has changed our lives.  Our kids will actually leave the house and play outside on their own.  We've played more catch and frisbee and tag in the last three weeks than we have in the last 2 1/2 years. 

And, our dog actually comes home on his own from time to time.  We love it!

It's been a great three weeks - not having to rake or haul rocks, but now I guess we're going to have to actually accept the responsibility of grass and actually mow it.