Backyard Makeover. Episode 1

For a year or more now, Grace (as well as the rest of the family) has had great and exciting plans for the first half of our back acre, which is at the moment in a swampy condition. Some of her plans include an Arbor, picket fence and gate, for a better access to the back. Then there is the board walk, stream bed and pond. So in essence we want to give the grassy muddy swampy section of our yard a complete makeover.

We started with the gate and arbor. Here are all the tools collected and just waiting with baited breath to be used;)

The view through a quickrete tube.

Here's where we ran into some trouble. Well you see, our water table is high, very high! So after digging a little less than three feet down water started seeping into our hole, and the tube that we needed to put in the hole was four feet long!!


As you can see in the picture, the soil below the single inch of dirt, consisted of very moist sand. Dirty sand, but sand none the less. After a lot of effort we finally got it deep enough and shoved the tube quickly down the gaping tunnel.

The next job was filling the "dirt" (sand) back around the tube, then mixing the cement and feeding it down the throat of the tube, and for that you needed a very special tool. The "Post", which was actually the part of the fence which Dad sawed off to make room for the arbor.


Josiah and the "Post" hard at work.


Grace was the organizer and supervisor, though she did get her hands a little dirty later on.

The hot weary worker. Mother set to work clearing the grass in anticipation of being able to dig our pond and stream.

Off we go into the wild green yonder...

Despite the cement being quite a bit too wet, due to the added ground water, Dad and Josh were able to get the brackets in then after leaving it a day or so to dry, secure the posts. They then attached the top wood bracket. This is of course only the back half of the arbor, the front section is still in progress.

As soon as they had finished screwing with not much loss of time, Grace went right ahead and began to paint. I think it looks quite nice don't you?!

This is Chs signing off with a promise to bring you the next episode of the "Backyard Makeover" asap (aka: when ever I have time to type it up)