Landscaping

Well Mark and I might have gotten in over our heads with this gardening/landscaping business...  We decided we needed to do something about our mess of a yard, and so we started with mowing and weeding, which helped a tiny bit.  Now, we are (1) putting in a retaining wall in order to flatten out our backyard (2) putting in a ground level deck to cover up a wasted grass/weed space and (3) putting up a fence so we have an enclosed backyard and a little more privacy.  And that's all just in the backyard.  Don't even get me started on the front yard yet!  But anyway, we are very busy with project #1 (the retaining wall), and we spent probably 8 hours digging a trench and holes for the posts to go in.  We did find out that we have the BEST neighbors in the world!  They all popped over and gave us extra shovels and tools that saved us SO much time and hard work!!  We even managed to get two of the posts in and concrete mixed so they are stuck there permanently.  Now we just have to pray that Mark measured and calculated correctly because those suckers are NOT coming out or moving any time soon, that's for sure.  Our goal is to have this retaining wall part done by the time my parents get here (we have less than 3 weeks), so we'll have some busy weekends for a while.  Hopefully it looks wonderful when we're all done with it!

If you are thinking that our backyard looks only like a pile of dirt, well, you would be correct.  We have a HUGE pile of dirt, with a huge hole right on the other side.    But if you click on the photos, or look carefully, you can see the 2 posts we have put in.  It's a start, at least!