Landscapers R' US

We have a yard!! It has been a long time coming and after going through the ordeal we have sworn we will never do it again! So I need to document the process to remind ourselves of how miserable it was :)
Buying a brand new house we were well aware that we would have to put in a yard-what I didn't know was the challenge that lied ahead of us! When we moved in, surrounded by a yard of clay dirt, we soon learned that any rainy day meant torture! It would not only be mud, it was cement! It would not come of shoes, and if you walked in it (which we had to in order to feed our dogs) you would sink and slide around right in it. I was having to mop our wood & tile floors at least once a day, not only from mud but also because of the dust. I even set aside a separate set of clothes for each week to throw on to feed the dogs-one little jump up on me and I was dusty and/or muddy. Not to mention the dirt we had would get scorching hot and reflect heat right out on the dogs. It was miserable temperature anyways but with the dirt it felt like we lived in a desert. Needless to say we were really annoyed with it all and realized the need to get our landscaping done.

Even though we realized the need we were exhausted every weekend from organizing, building shelves, etc.. not to mention we had a Lake Powell trip and other misc things that popped up that consumed our time and helped us to justify putting off the yard a little longer. Finally we decided it was either get it done or else we were gonna have to wait until next year, and the thought of going through a winter with no grass was enough motivation to start the process.

First step: Measure the yard and decide what the heck we wanna do with it. I have never had to decide where to put things like a garden, trees and plants etc.. so this was the first part of a whole new experience. Russ and I then measured up the yard and he drew up the plans.

Second step: Get sprinkler system designed. Sprinkler World went off of Russ's drawing and measurements of the yard and gave us a print out of a design of where to put things such as drip systems, and sprinkler heads. They dropped off what was supposed to be all of our supplies we would need to complete the system.

Third step: Pre-grade/level the yard. Even though the builders did what I could call a half ass version of this before we moved in-it was amazing how our yard had started to settle and was un-level. so in prep Russ' uncle Ladd borrowed his boss's bobcat and came and spent Saturday June 21st  with us leveling the front and back yards.

Ladd took one of our puppies last year and his name is Bandit. Him and I hung out together supervising the menfolks work.

 Our neighborhood is still under construction which includes the house just west of us aka our next door neighbors house. The Tuesday after we had just leveled our yard I came home to find that the construction workers had been driving across our fresh dirt and had then parked it there during their lunch break. Then I discovered that they were digging down the neighbors lot and in the process and cut into our property creating a less than straight line. To say I was irritated was an understatement. I took these pictures as proof to send to our builders as blackmail someday.

hard to tell as I was taking it from our spare bedroom window-nonetheless there is a definite zig to our zag in our property line.

Fourth step: trench for sprinkler system. Let it be said that Russ and I have always been aware of how blessed we are to have such great family and friends who have helped us with so much, and yet continue to help us no matter what! July 5th at 7 am we began trenching for sprinklers. Along with running the trencher machine we also had to dig a 6 foot plus hole in front of our house to access the main water line. Then we had to do things such as set up the stop and waste, valve systems, and trench underneath sidewalks. Oh and did I mention that it was about 100 degrees from 9am on??

Fifth Step: Lay pipe, connect electrical wiring to the control panel, etc... and Saturday July 12th the workforce continued to do just that and more!That day we got all the pipe laid, the trenches filled in, tested the sprinklers to flush the system and leveled the front yard and half the back. Once again doing it in at least 90 + degrees.

water fights broke out while flushing the systems

We had to take dirt out of the street side yard to be able to level the sod with the cement. Taylor and my dad were troopers to shovel load after load then wheelbarrow the dirt to said destination over and over again in the heat.

 Side Note: At the end of this day, July 12, Russ and I decided to put our foot down and set a deadline to be done. We realized that we had spent every Saturday of our Summer working on the yard and decided we would bust our butts and have it done by our planned camping trip on July 24th. So that Monday I called the farmer that we chose for top soil and scheduled delivery for Wednesday. I also called and scheduled sod delivery for that Friday. We crossed our fingers, sent out messages for help to friends/family and hoped we could pull this off- then the games continued....

Sixth step: Top Soil!On Wednesday July 16 our top soil was delivered! Mark and Grandpa Hudson came over that afternoon and the 3 of us started distributing and leveling it throughout the front yard. After a couple hours they left to go meet up with Russ after work to bring Grandpa Hudsons tractor over to help in the backyard. Taylor and my dad were there helping me when the Hudson menfolk got home, and Uncle Ladd even surprised us by showing up after their anniversary dinner to spend the evening helping us!

Landscaping has brought out our creative side!

While I worked Thursday night Russ and his dad spread the remainder of our top soil and realized we were about half a load of top soil short, and I would have to try and get another load delivered the next day.  Our sod company was supposed to have given me a delivery time by Thurs night, which they didn't, so Friday I awoke to my doorbell. I hurried and got dressed in a panic and went outside to find it was indeed our sod!

Once our sod was delivered I called our top soil guy and had him deliver a half load to cover our last section in the back yard. Russ got home from work and once again we had troops there to help us spread it out. After the top soil was down and leveled Russ finished attaching the remainder of the sprinkler heads and we ran the sprinklers to pack it all down.

Seventh step: Sod! Oh the blessed day of July 19th was finally here! 6 AM came early as Russ took off to Home Depot to buy stakes and string to lay out where the sod was going, and I went to the grocery store to buy some fresh donuts, muffins and other breakfast snacks to feed the troops. 

Everything was in order and ready to go at our set time of 7AM.  Russ, myself, my dad, Spencer, and our neighbors Tyler and Steve busted it out and had the sod laid by 11 AM! It was such a relief to get it in and be done! I kept telling Russ that even though it looks normal and awesome it looked so weird to have actual grass!

Our city put our water meter crazy low so now it looks like we have a hole in our front section by the sidewalk.

 Before we started the sprinklers on the back yard I talked Russ into letting me let the dogs out. Probably shouldn't have let them run around on it but the poor things hadn't had anything but dirt for months and once we had trenched for sprinklers they weren't even allowed out the pen for fear they'd put the dirt back in the holes. Needless to say, they loved the grass and were so excited to run around and roll on it!

 That night we celebrated the lawn being in by having a weenie roast with Spencer and his wife Angie. It was the perfect ending to celebrate meeting our deadline and busting our butts the last 3 weeks!

Thank You so much again to everyone who slaved alongside of us in the dead heat of the summer to get our yard in!!