Tuesday, August 02, 2005

I'm the type who needs 'closure'

In May, I ordered some materials to be delivered so Andy and I could work on a couple of outdoor yard projects. It took me three weeks, but I managed to re-do the two gardens I have in the front yard. It was a royal pain, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. I extended my garden space and built a retaining wall. I'm not completely finished, but all that's left is the fun stuff - adding plants and finally deciding what type of mulch I want to use. Lowe's has this wood-look mulch that's actually made out of recycled rubber but they sell out as soon as they get it in and I don't want to order it without seeing a sample first. Anyway, the point it, it looks pretty much finished.

Project #2 isn't faring so well. We're reclaiming some of our front yard that we're losing to erosion. I live in an area where drainage is an issue so the homes in our neighborhood have ditches in the front yard. A lot of people hate them, but boys and I kind of like them. We get to watch frog eggs hatch and see tadpoles develop into frogs. We have a lot of little fish (they look like minnows) and some water snails living there. We'll see an occasional live crawfish or turtle, all without leaving the front yard.

Anyway, we've used landscape timbers to build a bulkhead for our ditch. I don't know if 'bulkhead' is an official term but that's what folks around here call it - it's essentially a retaining wall to prevent erosion. Andy worked all day a couple of Saturdays ago to build the the bulkhead. It looks pretty good but we need some fill dirt brought in so we can re-build the part of the lawn that washed away.

The problem is it has been raining nearly every day - pretty typical weather for summers in southeast Louisiana - but I can't get the dirt until things dry out a bit. I know I should be grateful that after 2 1/2 months, I've finally got the landscape timbers and rebar out of the driveway, but it's driving me nuts not to be able to finish.

I want dirt! I want some sod! I need closure! ;-)

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