More than you ever wanted to know about my front yard

Here's a pic of the original state of our front yard. It was like walking through a small jungle to get to our front door.

Look at these gargantuan shrubbery's.

Blocking out my sun.

Blocking the view to our front door.

Blocking my view from seeing into my own front yard (from my living room).

They were the perfect place for spiders to spin their webs. I was constantly karate chopping the air as I walked down our sidewalk to keep the spiders from Tarzan-ing into my mouth (you might be thinking..what?...is it normal for you to walk with your mouth gaping open...uh...YEAH!)

So you might remember when I asked Joel to hack down the Jungle for me...

This was awhile ago..

Here's a pic months later after a bit of garden clean up. Thanks to help from my green-thumb of a mother-in-law. Although the front shrubs were just one hot mess still.

Enter our friend Derek (who works in the tree business & owns a grinder). We actually looked into Joel renting a grinder and doing the work himself but once we talked to Derek we realized it would be cheaper for us to hire him instead. Win-Win. (notice how small my patch of lawn looks here)

There's Derek starting things off with his chainsaw.

I think I had a goofy half tilted grin on my face at this point.

(probably looked something like this...)

...or maybe it was something more like this...

(random shot from Hunter's Mustache Birthday Bash)

Ok back to Derek.

Here he is grinding the stumps down...with said grinder. It was fun to watch.

Then we left b/c we had dinner plans and came back to this...

thanks Derek!

It took 2 trips to haul this stuff out. And those brambles were not fun to hug.

Enter Amy.

Can I build a staircase? Uh...no.

Can I put in windows by myself? Niet.

Can I build shelving or plumb in a new water line or build a new deck? Hmmmm...Nope.

Yard work? Heck YES! I can do it all by myself.

As you might have guessed..I was quite determined to get all the mess cleaned up without the Mighty Joel having to step in & save the day with his plethora of skills.

So I am quite proud to say that I filled 20 of those huge paper yard waste bags all by me-muscular-self. Unless you count Jakey throwing in chunks of dirt...which we probably should count. ;)
What a relief to finally have most of the horrible moss, weeds, roots, leaves, rocks and debris off my yard. (also notice how soccer-field my yard now feels)

Because our grass was completely overtaken by moss. We wanted to really give it a sporting chance to be as healthy as possible. So we had a load of top soil delivered.

We raked that all over.

Then we rented a tiller. To really dig out that remaining moss and to mix that top soil down into the nether regions to help bring up the quality of the soil.

Of course the boys wanted to help.

Joel did most of the tilling by himself. Although my plan..because I think I am superwoman sometimes..was to till the whole yard by myself so Joel could focus on putting in the windows...

yEEEaaaahhhh.....so I tried it....and it was kind of like holding back a snarling, clawing, digging, ripping, uncontrollable beast. I know in this pic it just looks like I'm taking a walk in the park, maybe only exerting as much energy as pushing a stroller. Well this picture is DECEIVING! Every muscle is strained and as Joel is snapping this shot I'm trying to keep the curl of my upper lip from popping out. So..conclusion to this odd little story .... i.am.NOT.superwoman. ....joel.IS. Haha! My poor man had to hold onto that beast and move it around and well control it for 2 hours. Dude ended up sore..BIG time.

Once all that junk got tilled up. It took about another 2 hours to rake it and remove it from our yard.


And the moment we waited for so long...GRASS SEED!


Joel's parents let us borrow their handy Scott's spreader. And we added some fertilizer for good measure.

So again...here's the BEFORE:

annnnnd....BOOM...the AFTER:

It's been a week and it still pretty much looks the same. I hope it won't be too much longer till we see some little sprouts happening. If not then I might have to have a throw down with my yard...show em who's boss.


Well peeps..more than you ever wanted to know about my front yard?

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