Taking it outside - Part I Don't Care Anymore

Well readers, the landscaping of our house kicked my little patootie this summer.  I worked so long and hard on this backyard that some weekends I didn't shower, eat a non-pizza meal, or see any other humans besides the workers at Stein Garden center and Home Desperate.  And a couple times I thought I would pass out in the destroyed grass from heat and exertion.  We also made ourselves a fine mess when we decided to lay a patio two weeks before a big party we had planned.  Just the dirt pile alone was a huge obstacle in making the backyard presentable.  The pile was almost as tall as me, 7 or 8 feet wide, and ran the length of our garage.  Yowsa.  Here is the future 'dirt pile' space just four short months ago:

Unfortunately, I didn't snap a picture of the dirt pile in all it's glory.  Frankly, I think I was too depressed to take a picture.  Well, here is the space after a million people had already come to take some free dirt thanks to my ad on Craigslist:

             

We had already thought about doing a raised planting bed here, and so that is what we did with the left over dirt.  Still more dirt went around the perimeter of the house for grading purposes.  My helpful parents (and their truck) came with me to Menards to snag these tumbled wall blocks and edgers that match the ones we used in the front of the house.  I dry placed these since I was only doing a short wall.  This was not a fussy project, I just placed them in the dirt, pounded them down, and then adjusted the dirt underneath based on the level. 

          

See the bone dry dirt on the bottom of that picture?  Yeah, that dirt was packed as hard as Ryan Reynold's abs on top of what used to be nice grass.  It was not easy to chop/rake that up and plant grass seed, but I did it with the help of some much-needed rain a few weeks ago.  Many weekends and waterings later, I finally got it to look like this:

All the baby grasses are growing slowly but surely.  Don't mind the random stone pattern, we need to cut some to fit and I just didn't want to mess with it until next year.  We also had too many stones, so I just started a third layer on either side until I figure out what to do.  I am pretty happy with the way it looks for now.  And I did almost the entire thing myself because pre-season football had started and Shaun was lost in "fantasy land."   

            
I'm super excited for next spring when I can start planting things in the new 18'x6' planting bed.  I still have to get rid of the HD bucket full of clay chunks and weeds, the dead annual in the planter, and that hose needs to be corralled.  Have you ever tried to coil up a hose that was slightly frozen?  Hours of fun.