Working on the Back Yard - Part 10 of X

Another week, another year overdue back yard update!  When last I blogged about the back yard, Chris and I built a pergola, and we'd been enjoying it for a few months while pondering what else to do to finish off the space.  We didn't want a yard full of grass (one afternoon spent mowing all of it convinced Chris of that), and although we initially pondered using decomposed granite (DG) on the other spaces, the cost and effort of putting it in eventually had us reconsider that, too (also, we have DG in the front yard, and the spots out there are a pain to keep up - see this blog for evidence of that).  We liked the rock we'd had in our yards in Arizona, but the fee to cover our space here was absolutely insane - around $1300 or so (it wasn't a big space, but rock is expensive here, like pretty much everything else)!

Eventually, Chris hit upon a great solution.  Lowe's sells bulk, crushed up rock pieces at many of their stores - it's a gigantic bag of the pebbly bits that are left over when the larger, prettier rocks are sold for decorative purposes.  While it's waste rock to them, it would work perfectly fine for us, and after reading reviews online and looking at it in person, we decided to give it a go.  Total price for the amount we needed, including delivery?  Around $300.  Damn skippy!  We placed our order.

While the rock was at the right price, and it would work great, getting it here caused way more consternation than it should have.  I think I ended up having to speak with around 10 (no joke, really 10) different people at both the Lowe's store and the Lowe's Delivery Service (which are two different entities, each of which needs to invoke a Treaty of Versailles-style effort to coordinate with the other to solve even the simplest of problems), spending around two weeks to effectively get the rock delivered to our house.  This ordeal dragged on for so much time and caused me so much frustration that after presenting a written account of my many, many calls to both groups to the store manager, we were given a 30% discount off the rock.  Score!  The rock only cost $200 after all of this, and the remaining $100 would be put towards a few adult beverages for me.  Delightful!

Okay, eventually, we got the rock here.  Since each bag was HUUUGE, a big fancy truck was required to get it to us, complete with a forklift style loader to bring it behind our gate.

Lotsa rock!

Halfway there!

All 10 bags unloaded from the truck,

waiting to be moved into the back yard.

"Mom, where did these come from?"

Since we live in Southern California and everything loves to grow here, we first put down landscaping paper, in an attempt to stave off at least some of the weeds that we knew would be coming to the yard (truth be told, they were already living here, but we were trying to convince them not to grow back).

Weed paper in progress - 

I'd put down paper, put rock over it,

then repeat, as running a wheelbarrow

full of rock over landscape paper isn't the easiest thing.

Because this is the way life goes, during this time period (late August/early September), Chris had just gotten over some lower back troubles, and I wasn't too keen on him breaking himself by hauling rock.  Thus, I set myself to the task of unloading 10 bags of pebbles into a wheelbarrow, wheeling it load by load into the proper spot, dumping it out, and repeating this many, many times.  I ended up doing the entire load over around 4-5 days, in 2 hour shifts each weeknight and 4 hour blocks on each weekend.

The first day's progress:

Filling up the area between the grass patch

and back raised planter

One bag down,

so many loads of rock to go!

Around the back corner

Doing the detail work behind the grill

On to Day 2!

Finishing the other two sides around the grass patch

Down the back planter,

and behind the garden.

Those are some happy tomatoes.

Ooh, pretty flower break!

At this time, we knew we wanted to build a second planter,

so we left a space for it - see that open area on the right.

Day 3 - only a few pics from this day, action shots!

Heh - I love the puff of dust here.

That was dirty work.

Probably should have worn a respirator.

Let's all just be thankful I have on real shoes, people.

"Okay, this is heavy, please take the picture!"

I will say that hauling rock is a good way

to stay in shape while you're in PT for knee problems,

and you can't run.

Finally, on Day 4, we put this thing to bed - as you can tell, while I was finishing the rock, Chris put together the newer raised veggie garden:

Oh, so happy to be done!

This is a fun picture - here's a comparison shot of Chris in the yard right after we moved in - fence instead of wall, almost no plants, crappy grass everywhere, giant freaking palm stumps still underground along the back fence line - my, how this has changed!

Digging irrigation lines

It's funny how easy it is to work on something for a good year and although you see progress, it seems slow and sometimes annoying.  However, when you compare it shot by shot like the two above, you can really tell the difference that's occurred.  A good reminder for life in general, non?

Later!

Amy