Stumpin’, Shovelin’, Barrowin’

We’re having another yard weekend. Yesterday Don (Kristi’s Dad) came by with his gardeners and a stump grinder to help us with our next landscaping obstacle – the rooted remains of a couple of backyard pecan trees that came with the house. They needed to be gone before we can till the soil in the yard corner patches and decide exactly what to plant there, once a handful of available cash escapes the wedding funding vortex.

I think Don and I potting the backyard Strawberry Locust tree out back had a real symbolic impact on Kristi – she’d been wanting to do that since last summer but never had the time. But now it’s done and everything else is a matter of tackling the next job in line. We’ve got the new rose bushes put in out front; they’re starting to sprout, probably thanks to the irrigation system extensions we installed to keep them watered daily. But God, we have so much still to do – plant trees out back, upgrade the sod, rebuild the backyard patio. But we can look at the yard and see that it’s turning into something.

Today she and her mother took a roadtrip into the city to go shopping for the bride’s mother’s dress, while I and my future father-in-law attacked their yard. They’re putting in a new backyard patio, and a whole lot of old sod and soil had to be forked up and out to make room for the stones. So he and I spent the morning fighting clay, roots and debris – Don mercilessly torturing a poor, innocent pitchfork while I wheelbarrowed the gutted remains of his yard out front and up into the back of a trailer. Diet Cokes in hand, we finally hauled the load out into the country, dumped it on an isolated riverbank, and stopped for some Mexican before heading back home to catch up with the women as they returned with their spoils of fashion war.

Tomorrow the bunch of us are back to our yard, this time to rip up and finally fix the backyard sprinklers.