June 13th - Trenches Galore

People say, oh the worst part is the weeds, or the rocks, or whatever. They were all wrong. The worst part is re-digging trenches. Until it's time to rake rocks then I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune. Luckily, we are so close to being done with those bad boys. 4 more left, two of which need to be completely dug by hand. The others we dug last year but we have to clean them all out. 

After yesterday I was a little distraught realizing how much there really was left to do and seeing that we might not be finished with everything we can do this year by the end of the month. We want to make sure we do it right so that we don't end up re-digging things or having to dig up grass or plants or whatever. But I think we can still be done. We just need to work on it more often for the next few weeks for that to happen.

Weeding the yard and parking strips
Digging out the trenches we dug last year
(Deciding if we need all the trenches we have or need to make a few new ones)
Putting in the sprinklers (pipes and heads)
Keeping the weeds away
De-rocking the yard
Installing curbing
Installing sod
Installing trees, plants and bushes

More trenches. Exciting, no? The first set of pictures are all on the north side of the yard: All the trenches that were dug out.

This one needed to be extended a little further

After

The whole north side: Dug out!

On the south side, this trench needed to be connected. The gas line is under there somewhere so you don't want to use the machine and accidentally hit it.

Boys.

The next set are of the trenches on the south side. 4 still need to be dug and/or cleaned out

Before

After

Skylar getting the valve box ready for all the different sprinkler zones (something I knew nothing about until a few days ago).

Pipe on the north side!

Still lots to do but we're making progress

June 6th - Sprinklers are in the strips!

3 of 3 park strips now have sprinklers buried. We just need to attach the sprinkler heads to the funny pipe and we are set. Checklist!

Weeding the yard and parking strips

Digging out the trenches we dug last year
(Deciding if we need all the trenches we have or need to make a few new ones)
Putting in the sprinklers (pipes and heads)
Keeping the weeds away
De-rocking the yard
Installing curbing
Installing sod
Installing trees, plants and bushes

Granted we still need to do all that for the trenches in the yard but for now, I feel good knowing the strips are done. All this week, we'll be in the front yard and now that I've seen the process of actually putting in the sprinkler pipe, maybe I'll do that while I'm at home as well! (Skylar may have some reservations about that because, let's be honest, I don't entirely know what I'm doing). 

2/3 park strips

Process of digging out the trenches of the final strip

Finished product

Sprinklers

This hole is underneath the sidewalk. We had to dig this out to run the main water line to the valve box in the front.

Trench running under the sidewalk

Skylar dug this one by hand. What a stud muffin

Main water line

Buried under ground!

Alright. It's getting serious. Goal: finished with all this stuff by the end of the month. We can do it!