It's Easter and There's a Bobcat in my Yard

So, when I left-off yesterday, Nick and I realized the project for the day was to work on the landscaping in the side yard and dig a trench to help deal with the drainage.

So, we got out the shovels and started digging. After about 10 minutes, Nick decided he wanted to get a pick axe, and took off for the hardware store to buy one. I continued digging.

Thirty minutes passed and Nick wasn't back yet. I thought it was taking him a while to run into town and was starting to get concerned. But I didn't worry too much, yet, and kept digging with the goal of connecting the hole I was working on to the hole he was working on. I felt that 6 feet of trench work would be a significant accomplishment. Once I finished it (probably after an hour), Nick still wasn't back yet. I went around the house to go inside and call him when I noticed someone coming down the road on a Bobcat. After a few seconds, I realized the driver was wearing an olive green shirt, just like Nick. Then I realized it was Nick.

It turns out that once he got to the hardware store, Nick remembered the store was closed on Easter, so what was typically a 24 hour rental was going to become a "til Monday morning" rental. He decided to rent a Bobcat.

So here's a bunch of before, during, and after shots.

Before:
(These shots were both taken last September, when we had the initial house inspection.)

Garden site, where 20x60 feet of sod needs to come up.

Unused driveway, where we'll run a trench to direct the water away
from the foundation; plus some grass would be nice.

Saturday work:

Nick using the Bobcat to dig a trench in the unused driveway.

Saturday's Results:

Unused driveway area, dug up.

Sunday work:

Nick lifting sod out of the garden.

Putting sod down along the dug up driveway area.

Close up of Nick putting down the sod.

It's coming along.

Sunday Results:

Dug out 20x60 food garden plot.

Finished laying the sod on the old driveway.

Nick applying finishing touches: grass seed.

Now, I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I know in all the pictures Nick is doing the work. When I wasn't taking pictures, I was helping get the sod off the Bobcat, filling in holes, and making the sod lay down as nicely as possible. Some of the spots were a foot thick. Sometimes the sod came off the Bobcat upside down, so I had to flip a lot of it over. Also, the sod wasn't in nice perfect rolls, or anything like that. The edges were jagged and there were a lot of chunks.

We definitely don't have a golf course grade lawn from this, but it is a huge improvement, the drainage coming off the hill should be a lot nicer. And, Mother Nature will level a lot of this out.

I can't imagine how much time this would have taken by hand. We're guessing Nick spent 10 hours on the Bobcat.

It's Spring!

I have to say that Spring has finally arrived to my corner of Wisconsin. Things have warmed up and its continued to stay pretty warm. Granted, there was a frost a couple nights last week, but Spring is definitely announcing itself.
The tulips I planted last fall with my mom, aunt and cousin started to come up. And a bunch of stuff that was already in the yard is starting to come up.
We started the day running to a horse farm where my roommate is boarding her horse. Then Nick and I went to an awesome garden and landscape store in South Saint Paul (or one of the suburbs in that area) called Gertens. It was amazing. It was basically a mall, but gardening stuff. We'll definitely be making a trip back when we start our full out yard planting.
After Gertens, we hit lunch at Champs and had our roommate wait on us. Nick splendidly split his drink all over the table, himself, and the floor. And I thought I was the clutz in the family.
Next Borders, where I bought WAY too many books. Then to Dick's Sporting Goods where we both made major purchases. After that, home.
Here's some of the things that were around the house after I got home today.

My tulips, that I planted. We had survivors!

I'm not sure what this is, but it looks like it will be a flower.

Look, bikes!

The bikes were the major purchase at Dick's. Nick had been thinking about a bike for a while now, so he could start riding to school. He convinced me to get one too, to help me with my exercise. We went for a very short, probably 5 minutes, bike ride. It was long enough to convince me to buy a new bike seat because that one hurt my rear. I think I have bruises.

After our short bike trip, we started doing garden stuff. I got out stakes and twine and staked out the 20x60 foot vegetable plot. I wanted to start digging it, but we want to move the grass there to a different spot on the yard, which was determined to be the part of our driveway that we aren't going to use anymore.

(We have a U-shaped driveway, but part of the second half of the U is on our neighbors land, and he is putting a fence up along between our yards, so we haven't been using that part of the driveway and will be filling it in.)

Before we can put the grass over the driveway, we need to dig it up. And that also involves fixing the bad drainage on our property. So, the next thing we did was start digging out new driveway. More about that after I get more pictures tomorrow.