Happy 4th of July

Have a happy and safe 4th of July everybody.  For everyone outside the US, happy Sunday, I guess.

May I Introduce......Lawn

Finally, it's completed.  The backyard no longer looks like the vacant lot of a crack house.  Now, it looks like the well groomed lot of a....  Anyway, we put in Fescue, and it seems to be doing well, at least in the hours it's actually been around.

Now, on to bigger and better things.

Back Lawn Update

So far, so good in the back.  Here's some of the progress:

Here is some of the trenching for the additional sprinkler heads required.  The zones for the previous lawn were broken into two halves.  We removed one half when we added the play set, which is shown below.  Unfortunately, that left about a quarter of the remaining lawn without water, so we need to add three heads to one side.

Here's my son helping out.

Below is where we're currently at.  We need to drop a couple of inches of compost and till it in, then we'll be ready for the sod.

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It...

...and at this point, I'm not sure if I do.

We have decided to tackle the backyard "lawn" next.

I do not like lawns.  Period.  However, I have made a temporary exception.  We have already removed one section of lawn and will be removing the remaining lawn in the front yard.  This lawn in the back is used by the children every day.  Yes, even in its current state.  Considering the kids like to be barefoot all the time, this is not a pleasant place to play.  Therefore, we have decided to replace this section with lawn.  There will be around 800 square feet at the end of the day.  Next summer, that will hopefully be down to around 500 square feet, as we are planning on putting a deck at the far end.  Current finances can't support a deck at this time.

Once the children are older, this lawn will be removed and replaced with, well, something that's not lawn.  We are going to start the project tomorrow by first removing the top three inches of dirt (notice I didn't say soil, as this stuff is practically inert), repairing the sprinkler system with something more water friendly (the City offers rebates on certain items, so stay tuned for that) and placing a drain along the patio to the left.

We attempted to maintain this lawn when we first moved in, but couldn't.  It was ravaged by gophers, weeds from the hill behind the house and a general lack of interest from myself, to be honest.  The front lawn is fine with no fertilizer or reseeding, just regular watering.  This one wasn't happy with just water, so the hell with it.

We'll be posting updates as we go along.  We're looking forward to a backbreaking weekend.  After the Spurs game tomorrow, of course.

Anyway, this past week has not seen much gardening as we attempt to recover from this:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those were our seats to the California (I know they're technically L.A. or Anaheim or something, but damn it, when I was a fan Nolan Ryan was pitching, Rod Carew was at first and we had Reggie Jackson!) Angels against the Cleveland Indians.  The attorney's to our Company (insert shameless plug in order to go to more games) Dorsey & Whitney took myself, my wife and the owner of our Company along with his wife.  And, there are really only two important words....open...bar.

There is yours truly doing has best Zane Lamprey impression!  Look him up.  And, that's only my first in the first inning...second in the second inning...I think you can figure out how that continues.  For those non-baseball people, there are nine innings.

To give you some frame of reference, that is the on deck circle.  And, yes, it's that close.

Angels manager Mike Scioscia looking concerned.  This was through glass as they had to protect the tv camera from people such as myself.  I was still somewhat sober.

Until tomorrow.  Game time for Tottenham and Bolton is 7 am PDT.  I expect everyone to be awake!!