Landscaping

So I know it has been a while since I last posted but, that is definitely not for lack of excitement in our life. We have been super busy this summer and so this is the first in a series of post to catch y'all up on our lives.

When we moved into our new house the landscaping was atrocious. The previous owner didn't do a whole lot to maintain it. That was one of the first projects in the new house. Second only to putting up blinds.
We had a major drainage problem around our flower beds. Anytime it would rain we would have a lake of standing water right up around our foundation. Not a good situation for the stability of the foundation. I had some landscapers look at it and they said I would have to trench my lawn out. I wasn't too keen on that idea but a guy in my ward who was helping me (thanks Gentry and John), convinced me that we should forget the trenching and install a drainage basin and a sump pump. The drainage basin is a fenestrated garbage can and all the downspouts around the house tie into it via buried drainage piping. When it starts raining the basin fills up, triggers the sump pump, and it pumps the water to a safer place.

In order to get all the water in the beds to flow toward the drain we had to haul in a truck load of dirt. 14 TONS!!!! I didn't think it would be a big deal to move around with 3 wheel barrows and 3 dudes. Lets just say next time I am renting a Bobcat.
Anywho, we got it all done and when you add 2 tons of drain stone and 10 cubic yards of mulch, you get a pretty nice result.