BBP Part 1 Arbor Vitae And Rocks

Today I'm starting the first in a week-long series of posts that will be about our Big Backyard Project (BBP) that took many many weekends over this summer.

P.S. I will not promise that there won't be superfluous pictures thrown in with the project pictures. You have been forewarned. These posts will be heavy on pictures, so I promise to try and be light on words. "Try" being the operative word.

It started all the way back in March with the removal of the arbor vitae, which we both hate.

So here's your recipe for arbor vitae removal:

Ingredients:
Shovel(s)


Burlap and nails


And a burlap unroller (okay, and a utility knife for slicing chunks off. That was my job)


Instructions:
Slam the shovel in all around the offending shrub


Pry the sucker loose


Place the root ball on a square of burlap


Wrap


Stick a nail in to hold it


Get distracted playing with the burlap unroller


Watch Avery scoot around. Wait, that doesn't have anything to do with arbor vitae. Sorry, just another distraction.


Line 'em up for the buyers from craigslist who were (thankfully) knocking our door down to have these ridiculous plants.


And there you have it. No more arbor vitae.

By the way, this is what our creek looks like on a lovely evening in March.


Then I had to go inside because Emmett woke up from his nap.


Hi Daddy.



About a week later in March Travis went with his Dad and collected rocks along a road on BLM land that the guys knew was a good rocky place. Originally Travis thought we wanted to move the entire retaining wall out and these rocks were going to add support along the lower tier where the creek actually is. I thought that was biting off more than he needed to. He ended up agreeing with me and we just stuck to straitening the corners of the retaining wall. Meanwhile these rocks stayed the summer in a pile in this strange square that was probably originally intended for a garden but the previous owners didn't do anything with. We will be filling that square in with grass.


There was some fun lichen on the rocks though.






And thus ends Part One of the BBP. We didn't start on the rest until July because we were waiting for the creek to dry up and the nice early Spring weather we had in March turned around during late Spring and gave us a lot of miserable rain. Turns out we didn't need to wait for the creek to dry up because Travis changed his mind about moving the whole wall out, but oh well. No, not oh well. I could have had my fence up in the backyard a lot sooner and a lot less trouble with when the boys could/couldn't go outside because of Emmett. Still, oh well.