3-29 Joys of Home Ownership - Yard Maintenance

Swimming in Lake Belton

We moved into our new house two years ago and we had landscape company install grass by laying sod in the front yard and in about half of the back yard. The yard looks really good but when you walk on it there are lots of places where the sod is uneven. A couple of weeks ago Larry had the largest landscape company in the area come out and look at it, they recommended laying down a layer of new soil over the grass and raking it in. Came back with a bid of almost two thousand dollars. We knew it would not be inexpensive but we really don't want to spend that much. Larry decided to see if he could find someone else to bid it and if worse came to worse we would ignore it or work on it a little here and there ourselves. He called the lawn service we use when we are out of town, they don't do this type of work but they did give us a number of someone who does, called him, he was so busy he would not be able to look at it for months, he gave us the number of another guy but he never called us back. Larry decided we might just do this ourselves, maybe not the entire lawn but at least the worse areas. This morning we went to The Home Depot and bought ten bags of top soil. The worst area was around the septic tank where the ground had settled. Larry opened each bag and poured it out while I took a rake and spread the soil. When Larry finished he helped me spread the soil with a rake. It really didn't take very long but ten bags of soil didn't go far and if we were going to continue this way it would take a whole lot of bags. Larry decided that maybe we should look at getting a truck load of dirt delivered and rent a tractor to move it around the yard, we would still have to rake it in. After lunch we went back to town, first we stopped at Mahan Brothers Rental Ranch to see how much it would cost to rent a tractor and trailer to haul it. The gentleman told Larry how much it would cost but his tractor was broken and it was going to take ten days to get it running. Next we went to United Rentals, their tractor was bigger than we really wanted and was a lot more money. The last stop was at Cheaper Than Dirt to see how much it would cost for the dirt to be delivered. So while we have not committed to anything it appears this is what we will do. Larry has never operated a tractor and he thinks it might be fun. While we were out we stopped by The UPS Store to get our mail and a package that was there. On the way home we stopped by Temple Lake Park so Flo could go swimming. The lake was down so she didn't have to walk too far to go swimming.

Mama Cozzi's Four Meat Pizza

I finished reading Personal, a Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. I enjoyed the book. Lee Child still keeps the main character Jack Reacher the same just older. For dinner we had a Mama Cozzi's Four Meat Pizza. In the evening we watched the movie, Elena Undone, and a documentary, Rainier The Mountain. Elena Undone was about a housewife finding true love. It was based on true stories. Rainier The Mountain was about the dangerous beauty of Mount Rainier National Park and volcano. This documentary was very informative.