Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Prepping for My June Party


I took off last Friday to dig up my entire back yard (12’x 8’) so I could sod it. It took 6 hours of ripping out grass and weeds, filling up holes, and leveling (which caused me to pull my hamstring). Laying the sod took 20 minutes. I was incredibly proud of myself of completing this task all by myself with one exception. I drove over to Home Depot to pick up the sod only to realize that 24 pieces of 5sq ft sod would not fit into my VW Golf. Not by a long shot. I called Tim and he came over with the truck to help me and shake his head at my lapse of judgment. When we got the sod home he asked if I needed any help laying it. I had dug up the yard all by myself and so of course I wanted to complete the easiest, most gratifying part of it the same way.

“Tim, it doesn’t take a brainiac to lay sod.”

“Colleen, it doesn’t take a brainiac to realize that you can’t fit a hundred square feet of sod in the trunk of your go-cart.”

Point taken. So I let Tim and my dad help me lay it. Amazingly we did not have to cut one piece as it fit perfectly like grass parquet to which Tim suggest we should ride this wave of good fortune and go buy some lottery tickets.

After they left I closed my eyes as I laid on my perfect lawn with spread arms and legs as if I was about to make a snow angel. After a few minutes my neighbor Jen came out to water her flowers. She doesn't have grass. A couple years ago before I moved in she did a faux terracotta patio. It looks very nice but I prefer grass.
“Hey Col, whatcha doing?”

Sigh, “Just hanging out."

I think Jen was jealous of my landscaping skills because I had also that morning planted flowers in my barrel out front and on railing box. The next day Jen had done hers… She got fancy cast iron window boxes last summer that I have been drooling over so I felt a little smug that now inching my way was setting the bar for out door aesthetics on E. Berks. Hers still looks better but I’m getting there. It’s on Jen!

3 comments:

Hadass said...

I want to see your house so bad since you have fixed it up. Hey what about a nice picture of your backyard?

Yard work is gratifying and makes you proud when you complete. Unfortunately my sinuses punish me when I do yard work, therefore, I am fortunate to have a husband that likes yard work. Well, he pretends to like it. Of course if we had only had a 12 x 8 yard, I wouldn't mind so much in helping him.

I am very proud for you that you did the work all by yourself.

Colleen said...

I am going to take some pictures but I want to add more flowers and stuff to make it all purdy before I do that.

Yeah, I wanted a yard but not a big one. Not at this stage of my life.

Hadass said...

It has taken us about 3 weekends to get our yard under control, and we still have to trim all of the damn bushes in the backyard and rip up some monkey grass and plant some flowers. The old man that lived there before was in love with monkey grass and planted it everywhere. I like monkey grass as a filler, but not as a whole yard. He also planted every type of bush he could find. We have like 50 different types of bushes around our house. They are all a bitch to take care of. It definitely looks better than it did but we have a long way to go.