We are xeriscaping our backyard right now. This means we are getting drought tolerant plants and making sure it doesn't need a lot of water. In the end the it will be awesome. In the beginning and the middle, it feels a little like prison. Last weekend mom and I dug an 's' shaped trench through part of our backyard. Just to give you an idea, we only dug about a foot deep and no more than two feet wide. All total we dug up enough dirt to have dug up a coffin 6 feet under. It was a lot of dirt! Then we went to Walmart and bought three bags of river rocks. (You can see the rocks in part of the trench.) Rocks are expensive, so we started small and thought that every time we went to Walmart we'd just pick up another bag or two. Seeing how long the trench is we figured this would take all summer to complete. We also bought some plants this last weekend and started planting them around the area. It doesn't look like much, but in the end it will be neat.
On Sunday, I think, my brother Ryan told us about some free rocks down by his house. I guess someone had just dumped a pile of rocks that were free for the taking. After realizing how expensive rocks are, we thought we'd take advantage of the opportunity. Ryan could help us at noon yesterday, so that's when we did it. We piled our trunk and his trunk full of rocks, in the blazing noon day sun I might add. We emptied his trunk of rocks on the parking in front of his house. Then we went back and filled his trunk again and then emptied it on his parking again. Then we went back one more time and filled his trunk full of rocks. Oh, I forgot to mention that we picked up and moved all the rocks by hand!!! We then went back to my house and unloaded all of the rocks from his trunk and ours into my backyard. Then mom had to go and Ryan left shortly after. It was exhausting work!
After dinner last night, mom and I discussed moving the rocks and I said that I would be ok to do another load or two of rocks, seeing as how they are free and all. So, off we went back to the rock pile and loaded our trunk. It went a lot slower with just us two girls doing it. Then we took it back and unloaded it. Mom stopped by one of our neighbors on the way home and borrowed a bike pump so we could pump up the wheel barrow's wheels. So, she pumped up the wheels while I unloaded the trunk. (On the way home we were wracking our brains to figure out who we knew that had a bike pump. We even went so far as to consider stalking one of the many bikers we passed on the way home to see if they had a pump.)
It was about 8:30ish at night when we finished and I again said that if the rocks are free I could handle doing another load. So again we went down and filled up the trunk and then came back and unloaded it. By the time we were finally finished it was after 9:30pm. In the whole process I only managed to drop a rock on my foot once and I smash my fingers several times, only one time bad enough to start it bleeding. And I can't describe adequately how sore the pads of my fingers are. And the worst part of it all is after at least four hours of intense labor I gained a whole pound and a half. What the . . . it's just not fair! Mom lost a pound though, good for her I guess. I just hope I built some massive muscle. I doubt it thought.
This is one side of our backyard. If you look closely you can see the 's' trench.
Those rocks are the three bags we got at Walmart. And make sure to check out our cute 13 plants.
This is the other side. The trench is straight under the tree and then curves off to the right.
Here is what a trunk load of rocks looks like. This was our first run in the evening.
This is the amount of rocks we took at noon.
This is the pile after our second trip in the evening. BTW this is easily $2000 worth of rocks.
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