Weekend Warriors

 We had some nice weather on Saturday and a little bit of Sunday so we buckled down and got a few things done/progress made!
Last weekend though, I filled in the front area with gravel while Bella "helped"

 We moved all the sod from the area by the barn to the chicken coop. I really wanted to get these pieces done so I (or anyone else) wouldn't have to put on my boots every time I went to check on the chickens. We dug out a little more ground, laid the fabric and the gravel. This took about 5 hours with three of us working and Pippa "helping"

Here it is with the gravel down. 

Notice in the picture above that the chicken coop is still really grass and hasn't been touched.

The day was about 65 which is apparently warm enough to strip down to your panties and run around all day long. At one point she had taken them off and was sitting on the asphalt driveway naked - ew. That is Liam in the background looking all grown up. You can see where we stopped for the day.

Here you can see what I did on Sunday. In the morning everyone was pretty sore so I went out alone and dug this out. By the time I was done, Dan decided to help with the fabric and the gravel. We did this in about 3 hours. The doors swing freely now (instead of being caught up on the mud) and we can wear flip flops to take care of the chickens!

Taking a bit of a break this weekend to spend time with friends but we will be back to it soon.

Yard Work

Here are just a few pictures I took on Friday. We have made some progress this weekend so I will post more soon.

This rose bush right by the walkway will be going very soon

Lilac "trees" growing over the walkway. These will be relocated

Plastic is down and ready for gravel.

 

Here is the font area with the rock removed

We plan to take the grass out and make this all bed (hostas and other plants)

River rock was relocated to the front of the house underneath the windows for drainage

You can see where the grass has been cut and rolled for removal

Taking out all this grass to make room for more garden beds

Almost all of this will be a gravel pathway. To the chickens and to the house.

Just another view.

March Update

Our work party wasn't as busy as we had hoped but we did get the sod cut out like we wanted, another area dug out and a bunch of trees down and cut up. It rained pretty much the entire time and non-stop since then so I don't have any pictures right now. I plan to have some gravel delivered tomorrow and it's supposed to be nice weather so I will try and get some then.
In the meantime, here is a picture of the front walkway with ankle-breaking river rock. Then my friend Tanya dug it ALL out! There was no barrier put down so most of the rock sunk into the clay earth. I will put a barrier down before filling back up with gravel. You can also see where the sod was cut, that will be a bed with (most likely) fern, hosta and moss - this area gets very little sun.

River rock

Now it's a pool. Will be gravel and garden soon

 Liam and I ran a 6k on Sunday and it was awful weather. He actually WON his age group, I got 5th in mine. It was a pretty small race but we were very happy to be done. After that we went out to breakfast with the whole family then lazed around the rest of the day.

Didn't want to leave the car

Before we were soaked

We ended up relisting our house with a different realtor this week. The communication has been night and day. For example, I know that someone is coming to look at the house today and they are concerned it might be too close to the truck stop. With our old realtor we wouldn't know it was shown unless I specifically asked, and usually that would be days later. We were thinking of renting the house but renters were not available until June/July so we decided to relist until then. The new realtor had us paint the interior all one color and do some mini staging with some basic furniture. You can see the listing here
Wish us luck with selling soon!