The Beginnings of a Lawn

We didn't let the odd rain shower stop us from finishing moving most of the rest of the dirt.  We can envision our seating area pretty well now (it is the tamped down oval).  Evelyn had fun digging and finding rocks.

After lunch Alistair helped Colin build a small retaining wall near where the grill will go.

Dirt!

This morning, a dump truck came and delivered 10.35 tons of sifted loam.  The kids (especially Evelyn and Alistair) were very excited about the dump truck.  I was a bit nervous that the truck would damage the raised beds, but he was fine.

We worked for about an hour, shifting and raking and tamping the dirt, before it started to rain fairly heavily.  It was lunch time anyway.

After lunch the sun came out and we finished moving nearly all of the dirt.

Moving Stones

We've been talking about making a seating area in front of the shade garden for a few years.  Originally we were thinking about putting a flagstone patio there, but it is very expensive and not necessary.  Instead, we are just going to make a flat lawn area and plant some privacy shrubs along the property line.  All of this is going to involve a lot of dirt.  The dirt is arriving on Saturday morning, so today Colin, Alistair and I moved the stones out of the way.

Alistair still loves his dump truck.