Building Dreams – One Block at a Time!

So I’ve been keeping myself hauling over the past week or so. The energy is finally back and I’ve a lot of ground to make up after the silly bout with sickness.

I surprised myself on the big project I decided to undertake. Only because it seemed so big and out of my league. But what’s the point of having dreams if they are going to sit around waiting for you to do something about them. I decided to move!

I’ve always wanted a little patio off the house where I could sit and enjoy the yard and garden. Last year I was blessed with most of the stonework for the walls – free! A friend just needed me to haul them off. Then they became my pile, just sitting in my yard waiting for me to haul them into place. It finally happened.

Enough blabbing. I just can’t wait to show you what the kids and I did over the past day and a half. Prince Erik didn’t know about it. He’s not the yard type of person so we just had to keep the first half days work a secret and hope he wouldn’t go out back. Our luck held and today I’m ready for the big reveal.

Here’s my big boys helping me dig out the base.

The part that took the longest was the leveling, and leveling and shifting, leveling, pounding , oh and did I say leveling.

But I wanted to do it right the first time and not always look at the wall and think – darn I could have done better.

Of course the weather was perfect – upper 60’s low 70’s. And cloudy! Yeah! Great for taking little breaks with the kids and lay in the grass and look for shapes in the clouds.

It’s been way to long since I last did that and I’m going to make sure to do it more often it was too fun!

But the wall was calling so back to work. The boys even recruited some help. Wippie!

And finally I ran out of stone. I would have loved to have made it one level higher but I’m tickled pixie pink at how well it turned out. Using recycled stone made it look like the walls been in place for years and not hours. And those blasted time-consuming stairs – I LOVE!

Yes, Prince Erik was happily surprised. He didn’t even give me grief about how messy the house was.

I let Evo-man and his friend build a fire-pit (until I find something to lay out the patio portion with). And this evening was perfect, smores, tired achy muscles, and the satisfaction of a job well done! Wow if the kids and I can do this in a day and a half – just imagine how much more we can accomplish this summer. All it cost was a little good old honest labor. You know building dreams can be quite the rewarding adventure.

The Back Forty.

So I attempted to tackle our back forty since the weather has been cooperating lately. No, it’s not the lower forty acres like the wheat fields I grew up with. Instead it’s more like 40 bags of grass, or 40 bushels of dandelions, take your pick. With all the rain and no let up, the back lawn was looking more like a mountain meadow. Knee-high grass anyone.


So I pulled our ole’ reliable Toro lawnmower out from under the deck and proceeded to mow. Every 20 feet or so I had to stop to empty the mower bag it was so full. Needless to say – my progress was slow.

The girls, enchanted by playing outside in such nice weather were having fun playing with Itchy the dog, and rolling around in the tall grass out of reach of Itchys chain of course. I then encouraged them to pick me as many sunshine flowers (dandelions) as they could. But when I turned around they were busy blowing additional seeds everywhere.

Great, more flowers, I mean weeds to look forward too.

So I changed tactics and persuaded them to pick up toys and sticks so I wouldn’t pulverize some treasure as I hacked my way through the jungle growth with ole’ Toro. When I paused again to check on their progress they were busy collecting cherry blossoms off our cherry tree. Apparently they wanted to make a petal path for our future fairy garden. ‘Swell,’ I thought, ‘Now we won’t have any cherries because what bee is going to pollinate a stick.’

Time to try something new – I then sent them to the old play area with specific instructions to find as many white pebbles as they could for their future fairy path. That seemed to do the trick and keep them happily busy. Later I found they brought the pebbles into the house and stashed them in whatever drawer and container they could find. When you have a bucket or two of small rocks they are bound to scatter to every possible nook and cranny. Time to find a broom. Is there anything I can suggest that they do that won't require twice as much work in the long run? I don't think so.

I suppose ole’ Toro was sick of the frequent stops, either that or I have the strength of Wonder Woman, because I yanked the starter cord right out of the engine.

So much for tackling the lawn.

I couldn’t waste such nice weather so I instead focused my energies on another eye sore. I have to, you know because I don’t get those energy surges very often. And they never happen when the weather is hot. So Spring is the best time to tackle the unsightlys for me. Believe it or not, yard work, is my kind of release. The plants don’t talk back, and it takes me back to my childhood farm memories.

So anyway, the front flower bed or more appropriately our front weed bed was the new focus of my yard work aggression.

I think I did o.k.

It now just needs some flowers and a little edging, before all those dandelion seeds take root. That and I’m sending off Prince Erik to the local home improvement store in hopes that they carry starter cords so we don’t have to replace the whole lawnmower.

Up Next... The Secret Garden.