Turner Times: Yard Overhaul Part I

I've waited so long to blog about this backyard makeover because it's a lot to say & I think I'm still recovering from the whole ordeal and labor intensive work.

Basically we John decided we needed different grass. Maybe it's a guy thing? I could see his point....our grass was very patchy with dried clay dirt in between the nice green patches. There was also a large hill like mound of dirt that needed to be removed. The worst was that it held water after rain like a FL swamp. Having dogs (and one day kids) made that difficult since it took about two weeks to fully dry & I'm not a fan of muddy feet or paws tromping through the house. So...John took my "lets do it" and ran with it....

John did his research. Oh boy did he ever! At any given point there would be several articles printed off the internet from different universities and websites stating the pros and cons of each type of grass. He ordered a soil testing kit to see if we needed more nitrogen or whatever in our ground. He would often lecture me on how balanced soil needed to be X% top soil, X%sand and X% clay and how he planned to fix it. It wouldn't alarm me to walk into my kitchen and see 3 measuring cups full or clay & water or dirt & water as he measured the percentages of them all.

He then used my father to persuade me that since we were going to tear out our old grass & put in new grass, it was also the perfect time to put in an irrigation system. ha! My father & father-n-law gabbed about how simple the whole thing was, which I wanted to remind them of half way through the project when they were all ready to trade salvation for a few choice words! I kindly held my tongue.

So, after he picked his grass, Yukon berumda OKS91-1,(yes, I'm for real...and yes it's ridiculous) we picked the weekend to turn our lush green yard (ok so maybe not lush, but definitely green) into dirt & mess...and wait for the seeds to grow!

My parents & John's parents joined us for the job. John & dad had to do most of the work because Steve recently had surgery & wasn't allowed to bend over. It killed him not to be able to help as much as he wanted. Luckily some friends were able to help out a bit too! Us gals used my recent purchases at the container store to organize the garage & make store runs....lots and lots of store runs!

I did a great job of taking pictures on day 1, but then my camera died and I was too busy to charge it so my efforts fell short.

Here are the few I did get: