Front sod and raised bed

Hello everyone from Texas. We finally got the sod and front beds in place. There are a few more plants to get in and some mulch to take care of and the front should be finished. Today they will be working on the back wall in front of the rv space which is the same as the rock walls seen in these pictures.

Above Terry is helping lay the sod. He spends every day outside helping do something. Yesterday he got the tree wells dug around the base of the cedars in the septic field.

We also had rocks placed in the beds so they had to move those with the bobcat. That is not Terry driving. Oscar the rock guy and main man was directing where the rock should be placed. He's the guy that built the path and firepit.



The following pictures are the front going from the left around to the right. There are good views of some of the beds. So far they have used two trucks of mulch and 4 loads of topsoil after the first 10 loads of regular dirt were put in before the sprinkler system was installed!! We have another partial load of mulch for the back beds. We are hoping that will be enough.

As you can see the septic field has a rock wall also. We are having that area hydromulched with wildflowers and the same on the back right side of the house between the rv drive and the house. We should have some wildflowers blooming this year, but it is a little late to sew for a spectacular showing this spring.

Left side from mailbox.

Right side from mailbox.

Guest bath side.

Sewing room.

Well, Puddles and Thunder send a hello to everyone as they enjoy another fire. Puddles has her back leg across Thunder's back. I think he was trying to move her out of the way and she just wouldn't budge.

Hope everyone has a great week. More finished pictures soon.

Sandy

Landscaping continues

We now have a firepit for all you campers out there. This is the finished path and firepit and below is a picture of this area before the path. The rock guy (Oscar) really did a great job on the walkway.

Before the path and any of the landscaping!

Things are still underway getting this landscaping in. We are now into our second week. Today they are putting a stacked rock bed in place around the entire front of the house so these plants will be replanted after they bed is filled in with dirt. I'll get pictures of the rock wall work today.

The front corner mulch is going in as well. Terry is out there today (very foggy and drizzle) laying out the bed lines and moving the mulch that we have in this bed. We still are waiting on more plants. The nursery had to order more and a second load arrived last Monday, but we still have plants to come.

The trees arrived last Thursday a week ago. Well some of the trees anyway. These were the big ones, live oak, shumard oaks, monterey oaks, bur oak and cedar elm. The bobcat is needed to move the trees into the holes. These pictures reflect some of the reasons why we didn't do this ourselves. First, we couldn't have dug the holes without a jackhammer and then it was very difficult. It took them all day to dig 3 holes.

Then in the hole for the cedar elm, they hit this rock and had to use the botcat to get it out of the hole. Now they will have to move the rock to inside a bed. It's still sitting where they dug it out of the hole.

A sample of jackhammering for one of the monterey oaks. This is the second hole for this tree. They moved the location after hitting rock and when they hit rock again, they just rented a jackhammer!!

You can see one of the workers standing on the rock for one of the monterey oaks outside of the sewing room. Fun stuff huh. Also, the same problems with digging the sprinkler. They had two rock saws to dig the lines and then the yard looked like someone had bombed it after they had it so smooth!!

This is outisde the sewing room and the Monterey oaks are in place in those holes that were being jackhammered! They still haven't staked three of the trees due to the rock underneath and unable to get the stakes in the ground!

Terry is laying out the bedline and racking the mulch in place. He wanted to be sure the bedlines were correct before they brought in the sod.

A view of the side of the house before the bed went in. They are actually placing the bur oak in the ground in this picture on the other side of the garage driveway.

First load of plants before any were planted.

Another look at the first load of plants with the 5 youpon hollys in the foreground. I think there are over 600 plants in all to be delivered. As of today, we have about 500 in the ground.




Well, I'll get out there today and take more pictures. There is still lots of work to be done.

Sandy

Landscaping started

Finally, getting started on getting the landscaping done and some of the obstacles that have been encounted so far will be reflected in the photos that follow. The picture to the left is before we get started. I know it looks pretty rough right now, but we will be getting dirt to level the ground, trees will be trimmed, new trees and shrubs will be installed as well as sod!!

There are lots of rocks to be bulldozed as well as removed in wheel barrels!! We are glad we didn't try to do any of this after we saw the things the workers encountered along the way.

The above picture is after they put in dirt and leveled behind the patio. Also, they cleaned up the area around the tree in the patio and limbed up all the cedars which look 100% better!! So far I think we have received 10 truck loads of dirt.

Lots of the rocks have to be picked up by hand and hauled to the rock pile!! Had to be done before the dirt went down.

As you can see below the rock pile is getting pretty big. The larger rocks will be used as a retaining wall along the septic field. We will have the septic field hydromulched with wildflowers as well as a portion of the back yard.
We have been told that the wildflowers in Austin are something to behold. People will be seen stopped along the road taking pictures in the spring so I guess if you are planning a visit, come in April to May!!

The pile of dirt is just one of the 10 loads so far. Not sure exactly how many we will be getting but need a lot to cover all this ugly stuff. We will be getting a different top soil for the beds which will have some nutrients hopefully for the plants!


The bobcat driver just seems to be having lots of fun moving the dirt and leveling it out. Terry was very excited about trying this piece of equipment out.

He thinks we should have rented one and done this ourselves, but there is a lot to it besides driving the thing. You have to be really careful next to the house, so you don't ram into it!! That would have surely happened if he had driven it, right??


The back before anything has been done will give you some idea how bad we needed to get started. Our windows need washing because of all the dirt that flys around when the wind blows and believe me it blows here in Texas!

After the leveling and spreading of the dirt and cleaning out from under the trees, it really looks different already, don't you think?

I would say it is a marked improvement without any plants or sod.

Well, Terry convinced Javier (foreman) that he could drive that bobcat and remove a big ugly stick bush with green growing from it. Anyway that's what they called it so Javier is giving Terry instructions on the levers and what each one does before he can start the engine!

The workers that were trimming the trees had to stop and watch this effort from a novice.






They were standing back so they wouldn't get run over, too.

Well, the engine got started and off he goes toward that big ugly bush. He was easing his way toward it with anticipation!

Javier is standing to the side observing and giving encouragement.

Well, he finally encounters that bush and starts the pushing and digging. I think he liked getting the front wheels off the ground!




He pushed, dug and shoved to get that bush out of the ground and finally it came loose.

I think he got it!! and he had lots of fun.

Mission accomplished and no one was hurt.

After all that excitement, the workers had to get back to trimming the trees.

As you can see, they improvise when they need a ladder to reach those high branches.




They had a trimmer with a chainsaw attachment. Pretty cool.

Then the hole digging started today for the trees. Well, I told everyone we lived on rock and you can see as evidenced by this hole and the pile of rocks next to it. He had to hammer thru the rocks to get the hole big enough. According to Javier the tree roots will adapt and find cracks for the roots.

The base of this hole is solid rock. They encountered this rock all over the lot where the trees were being placed. Two tree holes will have to be moved because the rock was too thick and couldn't get the hole deep enough. That's a good reason we didn't try doing this ourselves!!

Well, that's it for now. They are still working and should be here several weeks. Will get more pics as the landscaping progresses.

Have a great day.

Sandy

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone!! Thunder is happy to report that all is well and great in the Brown household. Wendy came for a long visit so we had someone else to pet us and feed us. Thank you Wendy for all your love and help during December. We miss you already.

Every morning Wendy was the first to rise and get right to work. This was the usual scene at our house except she did move from the bar to the table for the duration of her visit and work. She had lots more space to spread out at the table and had better views outside of the deer, turkeys, and birds. Her most memorable day was chasing the scorpion away from Puddles (who was trying to play with it) and onto some paper and out the door!! Very tramatic since Terry had just left the house and Sandy wasn't out of bed yet. It was a fishing day for Terry!!

Terry and Sandy want to wish all of their friends and family Happy New Year and lots of love and happiness in 2009. 2008 had lots of travel and adventures as well as building the house but now they are settled in and are enjoying their new digs. We (the cats) enjoy the space to run and play. Also, we have more places to hide.

It does snow in Texas as you can see by the house across the street. We are very glad it doesn't snow here like it did in Oregon. The weather has been in the 70's and down to the 30's. Very roller coaster like temps. This week will be 40's to start and back to the mid to upper 70's by Thurs. Sometimes Puddles gets to go outside and eat grass!! She tells me all about it when she comes back inside.

Wendy left on New Year's Eve and we were sad to see here go. We miss her.Puddles really misses her since she is her mama!! Now Puddles is almost 13 so we don't know how many more visits she will have with Wendy. It was lots of fun for her to be here.

Puddles and I like the fire and love to sit in front and watch our people!! We are very glad when the fire comes on and warms the room.

Well that's it for now. Have a safe and happy new year and we'll get our people to post more pictures soon.

Thunder