Re-Creating the Back Yard

Over the past year our back yard has been almost completely transformed. Last winter Grant and Blair demolished numerous brick columns, walls, and pathways. Broken bricks were heaped into a dumpster, but intact ones were heaped along the west wall.

When Dennis and I arrived in November Dennis decided to sort the bricks, stacking the clean ones and heaping those that were still covered with mortar. Then he began whacking off mortar with a hatchet, working almost every morning and evening.

At last, the brick job is done. Dennis has named the stacks that line the east side of the driveway. Here’s Papa, consisting of 1.081 bricks.

Here’s Mama, 788 bricks.

Here are North and Skinny, 1,026 and 474 bricks respectively.

In addition there are stacks of rectangular pavers (1,069) and square pavers (76).

Dennis cleaned more than 1,500 bricks, leaving a two-foot-high mound of mortar, now deposited in the eighth dumpster the guys have filled with debris.

Grant has been busy grubbing out unwanted cacti, bushes, and trees. Here he takes a mattock to the last one.

And it’s out!

At last it’s time to start creating a new landscape. Grant and Blair ordered three trees – an orange, a lemon, and a fig. That meant more work. Logan, who has been visiting during his spring break, volunteered to dig the holes. In the process of digging he found, guess what? More pavers!

The trees will be delivered tomorrow. We’re excited to be moving into the re-creation stage.

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer