Ow! My aching everything
This weekend we decided that we were going to work on our backyard. We hadn't had to do anything in a year or so because when we had our previous concrete deck removed, the contractors were kind enough to destroy anything that resembled a lawn (although to be honest it probably resembled a close-cropped collection if weeds). So between then and this weekend all of our topsoil washed away leaving us with a pleasant view of hard clay and the pieces of the former deck that didn't get removed. And it was exceptionally fun to walk through when it rained.
The day began way too early as I had been up working until 2:00am. My wife rolled me grumbling and cursing out of bed at 7:30 to go to Home Depot and rent a tiller. I was quite certain that she could have gone and gotten while I got more sleep, but my largely incoherent arguments were overriden. The people at Home Depot were very nice and helpful and busy, so an hour and a half later I'm home with some new tools and a tiller. The tiller was loaded on to the truck, so my wife and I wrestled it down successfully, but not gently.
Truck returned and I'm back to the house behind a tiller. Thanks to Salamasond for regaling me with tilling stories from his well-spent youth I have the foggiest clue as to how to work said tiller. For the next four hours I attempt to churn our rocky, root-infested, clay while not running into my wife, the fence, the garage, or the tree. It was much like riding a bucking bronco. Every time it hit a rock I was thankful that I didn't dislocate a shoulder. Finally, barely successful on all counts I got to do it again, this time with peat moss.
After I was done I enlisted a neighbor (Hi Bruce! Nice to meet you. Can I borrow you for a second) to help me wrestle the tiller into my mother-in-law's minivan. It fits if just barely. Just a little running room between the grill of the tiller and the back door. And sure enough, the first stop sign we take off from *CRASH* as the tiller runs the three inches of room into the back door with enough force to shatter the glass. Maybe this is karma catching up with me. We returned the tiller and owned up to my mother-in-law. She was just thankful that it wasn't either of us. But I'm sure that she was at least midly peeved that it happened to begin with.
Sunday rolls around and we are back at it. This time the order of the day is to dig a trench out to the garage to lay a power cable. Despite all of my tilling the soil is still somewhat hard and it becomes a full day job. Once the trench is dug, we have to feed the power cable through a conduit long enough to get from the junction box to the soil. As you might expect the first couple of feet are easy and the last couple of feet are a struggle for every inch. After the epic struggle with the conduit we need to fertilize and seed the lawn. Despite setting all of the controls of the spreader as specified, the fertilizer and seeds that should have covered our backyard five times over barely made it around once.
The upshot of all of this is that everything hurts and I'm sporting a nice sunburn. But we might have grass growing in the backyard this year. Just maybe.
The day began way too early as I had been up working until 2:00am. My wife rolled me grumbling and cursing out of bed at 7:30 to go to Home Depot and rent a tiller. I was quite certain that she could have gone and gotten while I got more sleep, but my largely incoherent arguments were overriden. The people at Home Depot were very nice and helpful and busy, so an hour and a half later I'm home with some new tools and a tiller. The tiller was loaded on to the truck, so my wife and I wrestled it down successfully, but not gently.
Truck returned and I'm back to the house behind a tiller. Thanks to Salamasond for regaling me with tilling stories from his well-spent youth I have the foggiest clue as to how to work said tiller. For the next four hours I attempt to churn our rocky, root-infested, clay while not running into my wife, the fence, the garage, or the tree. It was much like riding a bucking bronco. Every time it hit a rock I was thankful that I didn't dislocate a shoulder. Finally, barely successful on all counts I got to do it again, this time with peat moss.
After I was done I enlisted a neighbor (Hi Bruce! Nice to meet you. Can I borrow you for a second) to help me wrestle the tiller into my mother-in-law's minivan. It fits if just barely. Just a little running room between the grill of the tiller and the back door. And sure enough, the first stop sign we take off from *CRASH* as the tiller runs the three inches of room into the back door with enough force to shatter the glass. Maybe this is karma catching up with me. We returned the tiller and owned up to my mother-in-law. She was just thankful that it wasn't either of us. But I'm sure that she was at least midly peeved that it happened to begin with.
Sunday rolls around and we are back at it. This time the order of the day is to dig a trench out to the garage to lay a power cable. Despite all of my tilling the soil is still somewhat hard and it becomes a full day job. Once the trench is dug, we have to feed the power cable through a conduit long enough to get from the junction box to the soil. As you might expect the first couple of feet are easy and the last couple of feet are a struggle for every inch. After the epic struggle with the conduit we need to fertilize and seed the lawn. Despite setting all of the controls of the spreader as specified, the fertilizer and seeds that should have covered our backyard five times over barely made it around once.
The upshot of all of this is that everything hurts and I'm sporting a nice sunburn. But we might have grass growing in the backyard this year. Just maybe.
posted by mypetrock at 12:38 PM
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