After much begging and pleading from masses of my fans (okay....2 people....maybe 3 if I stretch it...) to bring back the blog, I'm finally back in writing mode and ready to update! I can't lie, I'm pretty motivated by the large coffee I had this morning (is anyone surprised?).
So what's been going on since that stormy, stormy few weeks in April? Well, once the snow melted our backyard started to unveil itself little by little. At first we thought "Oh, it just looks so terrible because we had so much snow...it's just a little muddy. It'll dry and look nice soon."
Nope.
Our backyard had no intentions whatsoever of drying out or growing any of the grass that we had so painstakingly planted last summer. After all of the chopping, ripping, tearing, shovelling, raking, seeding, watering, etc etc that had happened last year, we were left with a big, soupy mess. I couldn't believe it. I thought that the yard had been looking pretty good by the time the snow came. See?
The grass was growing in nicely, we had a veggie garden, we moved some plants around....what happened? Canadian winter. That's what happened.
So. What were we going to do about this? After buying the house, TJ and I had thrown around a few ideas about what we would do to the backyard if we could start from scratch, but didn't really put any of them anywhere near the top of our renovation list. However, we were starting to realize that maybe we should shuffle that list around and make the yard our top priority this spring. It was time to bring in the big guns.
First things first, we had to keep hauling out the bricks, rocks and concrete blocks. A few truckloads later, the yard was looking slightly better. But why stop there? Why not move the shed to the back of the yard?
So we did.
After moving the shed I was surprised at two things. One, that the shed was still intact. Coulsons don't have the best track record when it comes to moving sheds. Two, look at how big our yard looked all of a sudden! So again....why stop there? Why not....RIP OFF THE DECK!
No, no, wait. First we should dig some holes.
How the conversation is going in the following photo:
"Digging holes is hard."
"This machine will make everything much easier."
"THIS IS AMAZING"
Yes, the machine will make everything much easier.
The conversation in the next photo:
"It's just some little ruts. It's still good, it's still good."
Okay, NOW let's rip off the deck!
Many thanks to our neighbour Gary for keeping a close eye on the going-ons and jumping in to lend a hand!
The next week or so was spent nailing all the pieces of the deck together and making sure everything was lined up correctly. Most of it was. Like many of our previous disclaimers, if you come to visit us, just make sure you kind of squint and let your eyes go unfocused. Everything will look great!
But once our "new to us" deck was in place, something was just not quite right. Hmm...what could it be.....
oh yes, the mess we had made along the way. No problem! More heavy machinery should do the trick!
There! Now everything was just like new:
Yes. This was much, MUCH better than the soggy, muddy mess. Now it was just a muddy mess! That's progress, right?
The good news is, it gets better. And soon there will be photos of the better....but for right now, enough of blogging, I'm going to sit on my deck!
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