Men at Work

No, not like the 80's band; there are actually men at work in our backyard. I don't think we've blogged much about the backyard before, mostly because it is a sight of horror back there. OK, that's an exaggeration, but there is a retaining wall out there that has been crumbling and rotting since before we moved in, so it was always a bit treacherous. Last year sometime, Jake and some good friends of ours started digging to try to start to build a replacement wall, but never got much further than digging holes, which have since filled with water and plant life.

We finally talked to our neighbor, Roland, who owns his own masonry business. He builds retaining walls all the time for a living. He gave us an estimate, and we decided that we would have him do it later this summer. But then he stopped by on Friday to tell us that his job that was scheduled for this week fell through, and if we wanted to jump and have it done right away, he could take care of it this week, with an extra discount. Nice. Like, super-nice. So we decided to go ahead and get the darn thing done.

I know we had a few friends who had many times offered to come help us with this project. We decided that we would rather just have those friends over for a celebratory BBQ in our awesome backyard once it's all done. All around, a much better idea.

I'll post a few pictures this week as the wall develops. I'm very excited about the thought of reclaiming the backyard.

Roland told me this morning that the first thing he had to do was take out the poison ivy that was growing in the wall, and he also mentioned that there's poison sumac in the yard. UGH! So we'll be keeping out of there until it's free of poisonous plants.