the yard work begins

with almost half an acre to play with, it was only a matter of time before I got out in the yard and started playing (once it warmed up a bit). There are a few houses up hill from our house, so we knew there would be some water coming down hill towards our yard. During construction, we had the contractor grade the lot so the water from up hill ran through a swale in the back of the property, instead of across our future lawn area. My thoughts were that I would do a dry creek bed if erosion was a problem. Over the winter, the force of the water created a channel through the yard... I was right, it is time for a dry creek bed.

I ordered a few cubic yards of rock and it arrived yesterday. My plan was for it to be dumped in the back yard, close to the project area. As my luck typically goes, the driver was worried he would get stuck in the vacant lot adjacent to our house, so the rock had to be dumped elsewhere. Unfortunately for me, the rock pile ended up in the driveway. Now I will be hauling tons (literally) of rock around the house... so much for planning ahead, at least I will get some exercise out of it.

Here is the rock pile after I had already hauled a few loads around back:




Here is the beginning of the creek bed construction:


Here is how far I have to go... this is going to take a while:


Yes, there is a huge mulch pile in the middle of my route, that is for covering the areas that didn't get mulched before the snow set in last fall. Before I mulch I am going to spread seeds for native grasses and a few select wild flowers. I'm shooting for a prairie look in the back section of the yard.

Continuing my typical luck, it is raining this morning so I can't continue working on this project. The good news is that, other than needing to be a little wider at the fence line, it looks like it is performing well.