I have some dirt to tell you about.
It is filthy and will most likely rock your opinion of me but I have to share. Like sitting in a row of silver haired ladies under acrylic dryers, hearing about other peoples dirt in public just makes it seem that much more interesting, and normal.
It all started Saturday morning. I had volunteered to help my friend George frame in a walkway and patio. I really didn’t think this one through very well, becuase walkways and patios are pretty much exclusively in and on the ground.
I built the deck and gazebo you see behind my son last summer, which was above the ground. George needed to figure out how to frame a walkway to connect to the original deck and I was the brain. And brawn.
Basically, our mission was to move dirt. To be fair, Alex moved most of it while I framed the 2×6 walkway and wrestled 6×6 beams but I was ankle deep in the filth and became well acquainted with the shovel.
Here is the completed framing all ready for, you guessed it, more dirt! Thankfully we stopped here as my back was making it very clear that it had had enough filth and beams for one day.
My brother Matthew called my in the middle of the project telling me about the snow and ice he was driving in. I tried to have compassion, really I did, but I couldn’t let the irony of the call pass and eventually had to tell him about my 70 degree day building a patio. I hate winter and not so secretly love the opportunity to gloat in what amounts to an extended fall compared to what I used to experience as a kid. God bless you Minnesotans, but you are out of your minds puttin up with that kind of abuse! 🙂
Back to the filth.
It is kind of difficult to make out in the image above, and I can’t bare the thought of walking out back to snap a current picture, but behind the 2 trees are 3 dump truck loads of dirt. My neighbor put in a pool a couple years back and I volunteered to take the hole. The hill is about 5 feet at the summit and serves to block some of the road noise from the other side of the fence.
See that nice little peninsula wrapping around the trees? As of last night all that dirt as well as 2-3 feet behind it has been relocated to the front yard. I promise to take pictures to chronicle the progress of the front yard transformation once I muster the courage to hobble back out to the scene of the crime. Apparently I slaughtered my lower back somewhere near the “front yard – soon to be pond – side yard soon to be fire pit” area.
Here is some free advice for you.
Leave the dirt to the politicians.